Fangs for the Memories
by WildwindVampire
Summary: A "Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School" spinoff fanfic. It's been several years since Shaggy and Scooby left Grimwood's. Now in their teenage years, Sybella Dracula and her friends come to terms with the newly remodeled Grimwood's School for Girl Ghouls, as they enter their last few years at Grimwood's. Meanwhile, an old enemy lurks in the darkness, seeking revenge on the girl ghouls.
1. The Beginning of Something Fangtastic

**Author's note:**

A few short notes before you begin the first chapter.

I wanted to write this fic since, I'll be honest, there really aren't very many good fanfics for _Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School_ out there. Many of them feature the girls acting incredibly off-character, or turning themselves into sex goddesses. I've never understood the desire to turn these adorable little girl ghouls into kinky sexual objects, so I wanted to write a fanfic with the girls just being themselves. I think there's something to be said for the fact that all characters should be three-dimensional and have their own unique personalities. In this fanfic, I'd like to stay true to the original characters while also slightly building on them, and showing they are real people - no, actually make that _ghouls_ \- with real emotions and problems.

This takes place a few years after Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy were teachers at Grimwood's. It's not really specified how old the girls exactly were in the film, but for the sake of this fic (you'll understand more when you read it), I'm going to say they're all in an age range of about two years apart, 12 to 14 years old. This fanfic is also from Sybella's point-of-view, because tbh I love Sybella! The rest of the main five ghouls are also main characters, as well as Miss Grimwood.

You'll probably notice I spelled Sybella's name with a "y." I've seen the spelling go both ways - Sybella and Sibella, but the movie's credits don't confirm the spelling so I'm just going to go with non-Americanized version (since she most likely came from Transylvania), Sybella. If this is super concerning to anyone or it takes away from the story, feel free to shoot me a PM or leave a review and I can always change it later if it's a big issue for people.

Lastly, this fanfic is rated T. Obviously there isn't going to be any sexual scenes, but after all the girls are growing up and in high school, so of course they're going through normal teen stuff so it just makes more sense to rate it T. I'm not planning anything super mature, but I want this fanfic to be accurate to teenage life, which let's face it, isn't usually all sparkles and rainbows. Around this time, your feelings are generally wreaking havoc on your life, and since they're girls, generally this is the time where they become "fully grown out" if you get what I mean. Most of us probably remember what an awkward and somewhat angsty time in our lives this was, so I wanted to stay true to that in this story.

Anyways, without further ado, here's the first chapter of "Fangs for the Memories!" Enjoy!

* * *

 _August 29_

 _Everything feels like it's changing._

 _Grimwood's, the school which you have resided at since you were 5 years old is now expanding. Is this good or bad? You tell yourself it's good, because life is change, and after all, they were only building an expansion onto the current school. It's been a fun nine years, but now you are fourteen and it is time to grow and evolve._

 _You also tell yourself it's bad. You know change is necessary, but you wonder if it's actually for the best. An school expansion meant more students, different teachers, and inevitably growing apart from her friends. Sure, they've been friends with you since you first began at Grimwood's, but a little change led to bigger and bigger changes. Maybe they'll decide they no longer like you, or even worse, decide they never liked you for who you truly are._

 _You remind yourself though, that you've gone through changes before. A few years ago, you warmed up to a human gym teacher and his two canine companions, despite your initial hesitation regarding their frightened demeanor. You also briefly warmed up to new students after the human and his dogs had left. But then again, those students had left almost right away after news got out about the girls being kidnapped. Even monster parents didn't want to send their kids to a school where children had been kidnapped by a homicidal witch._

 _Whatever the day brings, you must remind yourself that you are a strong vampiress who can handle anything that comes her way._

* * *

Sybella looked up from her pencil and notebook to see that the time was 7:30 a.m. Stretching, she brushed her thick purple hair to the side, so it was no longer covering her left eye. Miss Grimwood, the school's headmistress, had asked all returning students to be to the dining room for a special breakfast by 8, so Sybella only had a short period of time remaining to get ready.

Sybella glanced over at her coffin, which her father had given her as a birthday gift just a few weeks ago. The coffin had a black exterior, and was lined with a red inner fabric. It was also complemented by a fluffy purple pillow and soft purple wool blanket (purple was her favorite color, after all). Sybella was a very simple girl, so she found it a bit lavish and unnecessary. But then again, her dad was Dracula, the king of vampires, so he might as well use his wealth and power to spoil his daughter rotten.

The vampire princess went to her dresser to look for her clothes for the day - after all, it wasn't proper tp be wearing a bat-robe to such a fancy breakfast.

Now that she had become older, her father had stopped visiting her so frequently, as he most likely figured she could better handle herself as a maturing young woman. Because of the newfound freedom, she began finding enjoyment in rebelling (even if there were no parents around to rebel against) and experimenting with a look which the humans often called "punk." Sybella enjoyed creating her own style, and quite often mixed between human and vampire fashion. There was something she had always found intriguing about the human lifestyle, though most of what she knew about humans was from reading books and such. Despite the rebellious, edgy stage she was currently going through, she still enjoyed cuddling up with a good book.

Sybella grabbed a pair of ripped jeans from her bottom dresser drawer, which would constitute the human part of her look for the day. The bottom of the jeans were very old and frayed, which caused the other ghouls to often ask why she would wear something so damaged. Her father could buy her anything he wanted, after all. However, something about the jeans made her feel cool and edgy, which felt oddly important to her while she was still finding out who she was.

Having completed the bottom half of her outfit, she frustratedly grabbed a black bra out of her top dresser drawer and began to put it on. That was another change she had recently gone through. She never understood why some girls were so excited about growing breasts. Personally, she found them to be a pain, particularly when choosing an outfit, and bras generally provided her with more physical discomfort than they did support.

After she quickly grabbed a purple headband off of her dresser, she opened the middle drawer and grabbed a dark maroon top. The top had small circular slits in the bottom half of it on the sides. In her edginess, the vampiress also enjoyed showing a bit of skin, just as long as it wasn't too much in the wrong areas.

Finally having completed her outfit, Sybella glanced at herself in the mirror. It was a bit of a pain only being able to see the clothes and not actually herself (she was a vampire after all!), but nonetheless the outfit looked pretty badass, especially after she put on a pair of jet black combat boots, and a dark purple cape. The cape had reddish bats on the side along with her name monogrammed on the back of her neck. The cape really completed the vampire aspect of her look, and also complemented her eyes and hair quite nicely. The cloak went down to about mid-waist, but it was still large enough to completely wrap around her top half should she get cold.

As she draped the cape over her neck and made some last minute adjustments, she realized she forgot her favorite part of the outfit...a black choker with a piece of jewelry shaped like a bat, attached to a ring on the front. Her mother had given it to her, who she hadn't seen since she was a child. Though she loved her father, she knew he slept around a bit and didn't usually stay with one woman for very long. Despite her father's lack of concern for where - or who - Sybella's mother was, she still longed to know and see her mother again someday.

Sybella took one last look into her room, which was furnished with numerous vampiric decorations. There were plastic bats hanging from the ceiling, complemented by posters of her favorite musicians - Nightmare, The Hex Girls and The Sparkles, all of which were bands currently popular with her age group. There was a desk nestled in the corner, with several items perched atop it. These items included various pieces of artwork Sybella had drawn over the years, as well as a notebook where she wrote down her inner thoughts, as she had done earlier.

The vampire princess shut her door, before heading for the large staircase down into the dining room.

* * *

As she walked down the drafty staircase, she could hear a familiar shrill laugh. A quick glance as she reached the bottom of the stairs confirmed her suspicions.

A pale ghost wearing a white dress was cackling in the hall, while standing next to a werewolf wearing a plaid skirt and blue t-shirt.

"Wasn't that a howl, Winnie?" the ghost replied in a high-pitched giggle.

"I'll say!" the werewolf affirmed in a lower, more masculine-sounding voice.

Sybella finally spoke up. "What's so funny, girls?"

A green-faced monster walked into Sybella's line of vision, explaining "Oh, Phantasma was just telling us a human joke."

"Why did the human cross the road?" Phantasma inquired.

Sybella just shrugged, her cape hugging her slim figure.

"To get away from the rabid werewolf! Wanna know why he didn't make it?"

Sybella responded with a nod.

"The werewolf wanted to _meat_ him! Get it, he ate the human?" Phantasma continued to cackle at her own joke.

Sybella adjusted her face to form a very fake-looking smile. She missed Phantasma's more innocent, punny jokes. As she had matured, her humor had taken a very dark and borderline morbid turn. Besides, the purple-clad vampiress always had preferred puns anyway, especially if they had to do with vampires or bats.

"Where's Tanis?" Elsa asked in her deep, robotic tone.

"Here I am!" the mummy smiled, "I was upstairs fixing my wrapping."

Even now that she was 12, Tanis was still her innocent, adorable self. The mummy was covered with her usual white bandages and pink bow resting on the top of her head.

"Ah, you're all here!" a new voice spoke. Sybella recognized the voice to be the headmistress, Miss Grimwood. "Let's get to the dining room then, I have a lot to share with you all!"

The girls all went to the dining room in single file, with Miss Grimwood taking the lead.

"Looking fashionable as always, Sybella." Miss Grimwood commented.

"Thanks." Sybella said, noticeably more subdued from her normally outgoing personality.

"I made you all your favorite breakfasts to celebrate this special occasion!" Miss Grimwood extended her left arm and pointed at the dining room table, which was covered with various food platters. "Now, feel free to begin eating while I explain today's schedule."

Sybella sat down in her chair, sitting on her cape so it wouldn't get caught on anything. The cape also provided a soft cushioning that admittedly felt quite comfortable on the hard dining room chair. Lifting the top off the platter, Sybella could hear her stomach growl with excitement when she saw the dish. It was bat-shaped pancakes with blood syrup. Sybella could see by the bottle that it was type A-, which Miss Grimwood has placed on the table in case she wanted more. It was her favorite type of blood, as it added a very rich flavor to any dish that Sybella adored.

Sybella looked over at her friends' dishes. Winnie had fresh lamb meat, Tanis had eggs and bacon, and Phantasma had an omelette. She couldn't quite see what Elsa had, but it appeared to be spider souffle, which she knew to be one of Elsa's favorite dishes. It was a pretty common misconception that all monsters ate odd foods, but Tanis and Phantasma were just dead humans after all. Neither were very accustomed to human culture however, as they had lived in the monster realm for the majority of their lives.

Just as the girl ghouls began eating, Miss Grimwood spoke up.

"Now, you all know that we have 67 new students coming in today, now that the extension of our school has been built. I'm sure you all have a lot of questions." Miss Grimwood spoke in a soft tone, as to be sympathetic to the five nervous students who had gotten used to being alone in their quaint little school.

"The new extension was paid for courtesy of the Ghoul Board, though they only provided enough to make extra classrooms and not any new living quarters. So, the new students will be commuting back and forth to school everyday, and you five will continue to be the only permanent residents here."

Sybella's mind felt slightly at ease. She would miss the privacy of her own bedroom if she were forced to share it with someone else. Though she was an extrovert, she enjoyed her alone time, which was often spent reading or drawing.

"Now, with the new students, I was forced to hire some new instructors to cover all the different classes we offer here now. Even so, we still don't have enough new faculty to cover all the classes, so from now on, classes will take place on a rotating schedule. You are all signed up for four different courses this semester, each of which will be two to three hours in length. You will go to your two-hour classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and report to your three-hour classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

It was a lot of information for the vampire princess to process, and she wished the headmistress would have unraveled some of the school's new setup before the first day of school.

"I've placed your schedules next to your dishes." Miss Grimwood continued. "I know this is a nerve-wracking time for all of you, but I want you to know you'll always be my favorite students, and I'm always here for you should you require my assistance. Now, I'll give you some time to take a look at your schedules."

Sybella picked up the piece of paper next to her placemat, trying to be cautious as to not spill any blood from her plate on it.

"Creative Writing, Introduction to Art, Gym and Human Studies." Sybella read aloud. "What classes do you have, Tanis?"

"History, Introduction to Art, Gym and Math." Tanis replied. History didn't surprise Sybella at all; she knew Tanis was a huge history buff. Sybella was happy that she had at least two classes with a friend.

"I've got Science, Woodshop, Gym and Math." Elsa jumped in.

"I've got English, Psychology, Gym and Math!" Winnie declared, clearly excited about the new classes.

Phantasma was the last to speak. "I've got Music, Theater, Gym and Math!"

Sybella was overjoyed to hear that the girls had at least one class that they all were in. She felt a bit depressed, however, that no one she knew was in her other two classes. She also felt a slight pang of jealousy that everyone had math together except her. Still, she was happy that all the girls were following their passions. Elsa was quite into science and math, and given she was good with her hands, woodshop would naturally be a good option for her. Winnie was the sporty type, so gym was very fitting. Of course, Phantasma was a piano prodigy, and her dramatic, quirky personality would sync terrifically with theater.

"Oh, and I forgot to mention about our little yearly tradition with the Calloway Cadets. The volleyball match will take place this year on October 13!" Miss Grimwood added. "A bit later this year, but we need time to train the new students for the team."

Winnie howled with excitement. "I can't wait to beat those Calloway Cadets again!"

"I can't wait to go back to that testosterone factory." Sybella rolled her eyes.

As Sybella had written in her notebook, growth is a natural part of life, but the Calloway Cadets had grown in the wrong way. As they hit puberty, they began to learn about certain processes of the human body, and became a bit too obsessed with one process in particular. Being the prettiest of the girls (she realized she could be biased, however), the Cadets regularly began flirting with Sybella, and she could have sworn she heard them talking about "getting kinky" and something about interspecies relations. She didn't know a lot about human romance or affection, but she knew enough to understand the grossness of their comments. She also once caught some of the Cadets staring at her ass out of the corner of her eye, to which she rolled her eyes and ignored them. Human teenage boys could be so cringeworthy.

"Oh come on, 'Bella, they aren't that bad!" Winnie replied.

Sybella responded with an exaggerated huff and let the conversation drop.

"What's the matter?" Winnie asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking about all the changes we'll be experiencing today." Sybella tried to nonchalantly change the subject.

"Aren't you excited, though?" Phantasma chirped. "I'm sure it'll be a ghoulishly good time!"

"Ah, I'm afraid I'll miss you all though. It won't be the same, not having all our classes together." Sybella sighed. "This is sort of like what I've read about in human books, I think they call it 'high school'. Every story I've read, people grow apart and become different people during this transition time."

Miss Grimwood butted into the girls' conversation. "Ah, but our lives each constitute our own stories. Much like your novels, there is a very familiar writer watching over the development of each of our stories."

"Ooh, I know this one...Mark Twain?" Tanis innocently guessed.

"No, we are the writers of our stories." Miss Grimwood elaborated. "We get to choose how we write our lives, and we decide how our characters develop."

Sybella smiled, feeling comforted by Miss Grimwood's clever analogy.

* * *

The girls quickly finished eating, as to be prepared for when the other students arrived at 9. Wiping the last bit of blood syrup from her face, she placed her red-speckled cloth napkin on her clean plate.

"Alright girls, the other students will be coming in just a few minutes. Since you all are finished with breakfast, you are welcome to report to your first class early." Miss Grimwood suggested, "Good luck today, girls. I know you'll do wonderfully!"

As the girls went their separate ways, they all said their goodbyes. It felt odd to separate from her friends, which she had previously had every class with, but Sybella tried to embrace the new order of things.

"See you in a bit, Tanis." Sybella said, as she began her walk to the Creative Writing classroom.

Tanis smiled and waved, as the two ghouls went down separate hallways. Sybella had never been in the new extension of the school, since the construction of it had just been completed the prior Friday.

The new area of the school was quite different. One of the things Sybella liked about Grimwood's was the rusticness of the living quarters and previous classrooms, but the new classrooms had a much more modern look. Glass windows served as the hallway's walls, and while the scenery was beautiful, Sybella much preferred the Victorian look of the rest of the building. Luckily, none of the old classrooms or living areas were removed in the new extension, but nonetheless she still wished the foundation and decorations were consistent. The windows looked directly out at the Grimwood gardens, which were currently completely full of crops. Rotten watermelons, shrivelled-up apples, squishy squash and moldy carrots were among the numerous crops that Sybella could see from the view. The girls all loved the Grimwood harvest every fall, where Miss Grimwood would harvest all the produce and make a large feast for the girls to munch on. Even though Tanis and Phantasma liked human food, they had of course gotten used to the succulent supernatural cuisine from spending most of their lives sheltered at Grimwood's.

Sybella found her classroom number, 88, and walked in the cold, drafty new classroom. Only a few students were currently in the class, but she figured more would stream in as they found their way around. The classroom was decorated with a variety of posters, all which highlighted writing tips and parts of speech. There were also several decorations around the room, which appeared to Sybella to be some old Halloween decorations they had decorated the school with in previous years.

As a few more new faces began streaming in, Sybella noticed that many of them were boys. Not that it particularly mattered, but the sign outside Grimwood's did say School for _Girl_ Ghouls, after all. Sybella glanced to the girl next to her, who had dark brown hair with a slight tint of red that was accentuated in the sunlight that shined through the window.

"Hi." Sybella said, in an unintentionally meek tone.

"Hi, I'm Callie." the girl remarked. "What's your name?"

"Sybella."

"Oh, Dracula's daughter? That's so cool!" Callie remarked.

"The one and only." Sybella smiled, doing a half-twirl in her seat. It was an action she immediately regretted, as it mostly likely looked unintentionally cute. In her rebellious phase, that was certainly _not_ the persona she was going for.

"It must be awesome, being famous like that! I'm just a sorceress's daughter, so nothing special." the witch humbly commented.

Sybella didn't think of herself as being famous, though she was nonetheless still flattered by the girl's comment.

"Hey, do you know why there are boys here?" Sybella asked. "I thought this was Grimwood's School for _Girl_ Ghouls."

"Oh yeah, I read in the news that they made the school co-ed. They wanted to get as many students as they can, with their new image and all." Callie explained.

Sybella sometimes forgot about the bad publicity Grimwood's had received in the Monster Media from the Revolta incident. Parents didn't exactly want to send their children somewhere potentially dangerous, so the enrollment number at Grimwood's had stayed at the five students for years. Part of the reason for the remodeling was to redeem Grimwood's image, seeing as just teaching five students wasn't exactly profitable for Miss Grimwood in the long run. Being an exclusively girls' school wasn't exactly with the times, and would turn away possible male students who would pay tuition to help sustain the school.

"Okay class, let's get started with our Creative Writing class." the instructor announced. She was a skinny woman with pale white skin, and donned a pointy purple hat. "My name is Miss Lillard, and I will be your teacher for this semester. Now, I'd like to start our first day by having everyone share what they're interested in writing about. Who would like to start?"

A furry male werewolf wearing a black t-shirt raised his paw.

"You may start when ready, Jacob." Miss Lillard responded.

"I've got a story you guys will never believe, man. So this summer, I met this girl named Bella and we fell in love. After we kissed, she told me she was a human girl! And that's not even the craziest part! So, she tells me she loves me, but she says she's also in love with a vampire!" Jacob explained, clearly excited by his once-in-a-lifetime story.

"I'm so sorry, Jacob. I'm afraid that's already been done." Miss Lillard said sympathetically.

"Damn it!" Jacob roared. "That's the only reason why I took this class!" Jacob angrily flipped his desk over, smashing the wood to pieces on the ground as he stormed out the door. The door slammed behind Jacob, causing everyone in the class just stare with surprise before averting their eyes back to Miss Lillard.

Sybella was surprised no one seemed to give a second look to Jacob's volatile outburst. With tonight being a full moon, she supposed it was his "time of the moon." For werewolf offspring whose parents were turned in a previous generation, the werewolf gene was passed down, although the wolf phase of their transformation was permanent. Because of their biological chemistry however, their bodies still sensed when it was close to the full moon, and went through the hormonal "changing" process even though they didn't change physically. It was sort of like a female getting her menstrual cycle in a way, though it only lasted 24 hours and occurred once a month on the night of the full moon.

She envied werewolves a bit for that reason, and her other three friends even more so, as she was the only one of the five to consistently get her period every month. Elsa's father was partially man-made, so his creator was able to control the gene pool as to prevent any offspring from going through the painful time of the month. She didn't know a lot about reproduction of the dead, but she knew ghosts and mummies had other ways of reproducing, as there was no need for their bodies to go through the typical birthing cycles now that they were deceased. With Winnie getting her "time of the moon" only one day out of the month, that just left Sybella. Sybella had just begun getting her period about a year ago, causing her to envy her other female friends who didn't have to deal with the uncomfortable time every month. It was especially awkward as a vampire, as blood was normally a tantalizing treat for her, and therefore it felt quite uncomfortable to have it coming out of her body. Tampons helped a bit, but she never found them particularly comfortable, and was still getting used to having to wear them for a whole week out of every month.

Miss Lillard had already moved on, without even commenting on Jacob's incident. She knew werewolves could be a bit cranky around that time from experience with Winnie, but she had never seen Winnie violent or angry to that degree.

In her daydreaming state, Sybella hadn't noticed that Miss Lillard had called on her until Callie tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hmm?" Sybella said dreamily, her mind still elsewhere. Callie pointed to Miss Lillard, who was tapping her foot in impatience. "Oh, sorry. What was the question?"

"What are you most interested in writing about, Sybella?" Miss Lillard repeated, a hint of annoyance still present in her voice.

"Uhmm…" Sybella paused for a moment. She was certainly interested in using her creative mind for writing, but she hadn't ever stopped to think about just what exactly she wanted to write about. Finally, she spoke up.

"I've read a lot of books about humans, so maybe something like that?" Sybella said, ending her statement with a tone of uncertainty.

Miss Lillard raised her eyebrow, clearly quite impressed by Sybella's abstract subject choice. Generally, monsters didn't really speak much about humans, because of the stereotypes of humans burning and killing monsters. Let's just say the Salem Witch Trials put quite a strain on human-monster relations. You're not likely to be friendly to humans when they nearly wiped out a whole species out of pure fear and misunderstanding.

"Very interesting, Sybella!"

Sybella's face instinctually drifted into the formation of a smile, pleased that she had impressed her new instructor. Maybe today wouldn't be as bad as she thought.

* * *

It seemed like only minutes later that the tone of the school bell could be heard.

"Thank you for a wonderful class, students! I'll see you on Wednesday, same time, same place!" Miss Lillard shouted, trying to be heard over the noise of the students packing up their backpacks and belongings to go to their next class. Sybella glanced at the piece of paper which listed her schedule, and was happy to notice that her next classroom was only 5 doors away from her current location.

As she walked out of the room, the purple-clad vampire immediately noticed room 93, where her art class was held. Sybella peered inside the door, noticing Tanis sitting in the front middle desk.

"Hey, Tanis!" Sybella waved to her bandaged buddy.

"Hi Sybella! How was your first class?" Tanis greeted, as Sybella occupied the seat to the right of her.

"Oh, it was quite fangtastic! How about your history class?"

"It was really interesting! We learned about Ancient Egypt and King Tut!" Tanis chirped. Sybella loved being in the presence of Tanis. If there was one person that could cheer her up, it was definitely her innocent, pure-hearted mummy friend.

Before Sybella had a chance to answer, she noticed Jacob (the same student who had broken the desk) walk into the room and sit directly next to her. Though she certainly wasn't a fan of his crude demeanor, she began amusing herself with what outrageous thing he might do next.

"That's cool, Tanis!" Sybella finally responded to her friend's earlier comment, before pausing to listen to the voice of her new instructor.

"Good morning class! I am Mr. Welker, your instructor for this Introduction to Art course. Today, we are going to begin with talking about light and shadow."

Sybella took a momentary glance over at Tanis, who was clearly very interested in the possibility of learning a new topic area. Tanis was definitely no artist, but she loved learning new things. The purple-skinned ghoul continued to listen while her teacher continued to discuss the differences between the two concepts.

* * *

"And that's how you properly add light and shadow into a work of art." Mr. Welker concluded. "Now, does anyone have any questions?"

The room was overtaken with silence.

Not seeing any hands (or paws), Mr. Welker resumed speaking. "We only have 10 minutes of class yet. We have a lot of art supplies paid for by the Ghoul Board, so I'll just give you a free period the last few minutes of class. Feel free to do whatever you want."

"Hell yeah!" Jacob shouted as he jumped out of his seat, grabbing a large metal paint can and tossing it out the window, with shattered glass falling to the floor. He then proceeded to launch himself out the window with a single jump.

Not speaking for a moment, Mr. Welker just replied "Clearly we have some very literal thinkers in this class! Now, you may proceed to do whatever you _artistically_ want. Let's not follow your classmate's example, please."

Sybella would have thought he would have made a much bigger deal out of the fact that a student had just leaped out the window. Then again, Mr. Welker was a werewolf, so he probably was experiencing his "time of the moon" too. Still, she had never seen a werewolf act so erratic. However, she wasn't afraid to admit she was sheltered, living at Grimwood's most of her life, so she figured maybe it was just a part of the outside supernatural world that she hadn't experienced it yet.

Tanis looked at Sybella with a look of shock, clearly sharing the vampire princess's feelings on the matter.

* * *

It had been a long day, between all the classes and going to study hall, where she completed her homework from the first day. Sybella was pleased she had finished the night's homework quickly, as not much had been assigned the first day. Tanis, who had followed her to the study room, caught up with Sybella.

"Ready to go to dinner with Miss Grimwood?" Tanis asked.

Ever since they first began at the school, it was a tradition that the five ghouls always ate their meals along with Miss Grimwood. The ghouls were like a family of sorts, seeing as they didn't go home to their parents every night. However, Sybella didn't feel particularly social tonight.

"No, it's okay Tanis. I've got a lot of homework to do, and I'm pretty wiped."

"But...we always have dinner together." Tanis replied, shocked at her vampire friend's cold reply.

"Like Miss Grimwood said, we're starting a new phase in our lives now. I just want to be alone." Sybella said firmly.

"Okay, Sybella. Whatever you want." Tanis seemed understanding, though her face and posture alluded to the fact that she was a bit disappointed. Sybella didn't mean to disappoint her four friends or Miss Grimwood, but she craved her alone time. She felt a bit bad about lying to Tanis though, as she didn't have homework to do and wasn't particularly tired. Frankly, all she wanted to do was lie in her coffin and pout. The vampire princess realized she was acting silly, but she felt pouting would be good for her and allow her to get some of the excess angst out. These strange, new feelings made Sybella miss the times from when she was just a kid, carefree and always happy.

Sybella quickly shuffled from the hallway up to her room, hoping she wouldn't run into anyone else. She didn't mind seeing them of course, but the interaction with Tanis was awkward and she didn't want to disappoint anyone, at least not in person anyway.

Her wish was granted, and Sybella made it up the staircase to her room without anyone noticing her. As soon as her bedroom door was safely shut, she quickly undressed and changed into her bat-robe once again, before collapsing into her coffin and trying to lay in the poutiest position she could think of.

* * *

 _August 30_

 _You were right. But you were just as much wrong._

 _You spent half the night pouting, and it helped you feel better. Sometimes a little self-pity was therapeutic._

 _You were wrong though, not to give the new lifestyle a chance. You're not a little girl anymore, you tell yourself. But you long for those carefree, cheerful feelings that you had as a kid._

 _You have to give it a chance._

 _Will things become easier if you stop playing pretend? You respond with a both yes and a no._

 _Some things will get easier, if you stop worrying so damn much and just take happiness in what you have. But some things will get harder, and then the hard things will get easier, and new things will become harder._

 _You'll never know if you can handle change if you never try and potentially fail. But things will work out for the best eventually._

* * *

Sybella let out a sigh as she put down her pencil, though she wasn't yet sure of her true feelings. On one hand, she felt happy that she had come up with a solution, and expelled all the poutiness from her restless mind. On the other hand, she really had no idea what to expect, and saying you're going to do something is easier than actually being brave and doing it.

Her mind returned to happy thoughts, as soon as she realized it was Tuesday, and that meant her first class was gym with all of her friends. Sybella smiled, as she opened her dresser drawer to pick out an outfit for the day.

The adolescent ghoul opened the cold handle of the metal drawer, and grabbed a red t-shirt which read "Vampire Rock Music Festival." After putting it on, she dug through her bottom drawer to find a comfortable article of clothing to complete the bottom part of her look. She wasn't much for skirts, so most of what she had were jeans and pants. Sybella picked up a pair of black sweatpants, briefly rubbing her hand on the soft inner lining of them. Not necessarily the most fashionable outfit of her wardrobe, but after all she was just going to gym class, and it wasn't worth sweating over (figuratively or literally).

Glancing at her clock, Sybella noticed she was nearly out of time before her gym class began. The girls didn't usually do anything fancy or sit down together for breakfast on a normal day. Usually, she would quickly grab something from the dining hall or if it was nice enough, grab a piece of fruit from Miss Grimwood's garden outside.

All of a sudden, Sybella heard a noise outside her door. Feeling slightly panicked, she opened the door a crack, and took a peek outside into the hallway. She received an unpleasant surprise, as smoke began to cover her face.

"Someone's having a bat day." Sybella coughed, looking at a small green dragon, who was the perpetrator behind the unwanted smoke screen. The dragon made a muttering noise which Sybella couldn't comprehend.

"Come on Matches, I was just going down to grab some breakfast." Sybella indirectly replied to the dragon's indecipherable comment.

Matches muttered something to himself again, before walking in Sybella's room as she finished getting ready. She grabbed her bat choker and quickly fastened it around her neck, before picking up a purple headband tossed precariously on her desk. The teenager debated whether to wear her combat boots, but quickly decided to put on some tennis shoes instead to assure she was comfortable while exercising.

"Sorry for the wait. I'm ready now." Sybella apologized to Matches, who didn't seem to really care one way or another.

* * *

Sybella got down the stairs and began walking down the same hall she had yesterday. A quick glance out the window showed her that it was a very blustery and windy day, just the kind she liked.

"I'm going to get some breakfast in the garden, Matches. A rotten crabapple sounds scrumptious this morning!" Sybella observed her vocalizations becoming more chipper and happy as the day went on.

She exited out the side glass door, which was newly put in. The new addition wasn't all bad, especially given it allowed her to be so close to the garden on her way to class. Oddly, she noticed that Matches didn't follow her out, though she figured he must have left and gone somewhere else.

On her quest to break the fast, Sybella noticed a familiar transparent face.

"Hey Sybella! We missed you at dinner last night!" Phantasma chirped happily. "Where were you at? We were getting worried."

Sybella debated telling her the truth, but felt self-conscious saying "pouting in my coffin" even if it felt really good when she had done it.

"I was feeling tired. Such a big change in schedule takes a lot out of a girl, especially when our schedules have been the same for years." Sybella responded.

"Yeah, I get what you mean!" Phantasma giggled. "I was _dying_ for a nap as well!"

There was the punny phantom she knew and loved!

Sybella let out a laugh. "Clever as always, Phanty."

"Oh! We have gym together today!" Phantasma reminded her blood-sucking buddy.

"Yes! I've been excited about that all morning!" Sybella answered. "I was just getting a crabapple before heading over to the gym."

The purple-clad vampire pulled a crabapple off of the tree, before sucking the juice out of it in a matter of seconds. Or actually, no, she forgot she wasn't purple-clad anymore. She had gotten so used to wearing her cape everywhere that she didn't remember that she wasn't wearing it today. She had no idea how hard the new coach was going to work her, and it was better to wear less clothes just in case. She always felt gross when her body worked up a good sweat, even if it meant she was getting good exercise.

"Mmm, deliciously rotten!" Sybella cooed, as she tossed the apple skin into the dirt. "You want one, Phanty?"

"No, I've already had two. I was just enjoying the beautiful, quiet morning."

Almost as if on cue with Phantasma's comment, Sybella nearly jumped ten feet when an obnoxiously loud bass began continuously booming from the distance.

"Just what I wanted to hear." Phanty rolled her eyes.

The girls had unwillingly become accustomed to the Calloway Cadets blaring music during their morning exercises. Sybella could get into some hard rock music, especially if it was something by a vampire band, but it seemed the Cadets mostly listened to rap which usually demeaned women or swore extensively and unnecessarily.

Sybella couldn't make out most of the lyrics from the song they were playing, though she heard something about the singer "smacking a hoe." She had no idea what could make someone angry enough to assault a gardening tool, but humans were into strange things.

"C'mon, let's get to class." Phanty said, clearly tired of the obnoxious musical posturing the Cadets did on a consistent basis.

* * *

The two friends got into the gym in record time, seeing as the new extension of the school also included several new secret passageways, which the girls had fun exploring. Elsa, Winnie and Tanis had already arrived.

"Hey girls!" Tanis waved. "Feeling better, Sybella?"

"Much, thank you." Sybella smiled, trying to copy Tanis's constantly-cheery example, in hopes it would make her less angsty.

"Yeah, we missed you at dinner last night, 'Bella!" Winnie commented.

"I was dead tired." Sybella replied, "I clearly needed a good night's rest."

"Will you be at dinner tonight?" Elsa inquired. "It's not the same without you there."

Sybella couldn't think of any reason not to be there. "Sure." she affirmed.

"Alright, let's get this thing over with." an unfamiliar voice sighed. Sybella turned around to see a large man wearing blue sweatpants and a white tank top, which was covered in sweat stains. The man was quite overweight, and if she had to guess, Sybella would presume he was at least 250 pounds.

"The name's Micucci, Frank Micucci. I'm your new gym coach for this year. Because we had some budget cuts, I'll be teaching you about your bodies too. Every Tuesday will be gym class, every Thursday will be health class." The man spoke very firmly and curtly, his vocalizations sounding very deep and informal, and even somewhat like a sleazy mobster.

Sybella had hoped that when she took health, she would learn things about her body in a delicate and sensitive manner. This man looked like he could barely take care of his own body, and from his word choice, she could tell he wasn't the sugar-coating type.

"Now, let's do some deep sneakin'." Coach Micucci said.

Sybella rolled her eyes and let out a huff, which in hindsight was probably too loud. "It's deep _shrieking_."

"Yeah, that too." Coach Micucci added, trying to cover up his obvious mistake.

The girls' high shrieks were somewhat lost in the guys' loud screams, which put Sybella off a bit. She wasn't used to having boys around, though she supposed she would have to eventually. A quick look around at the other students showed her that her class was comprised of one other vampire, two werewolves, two witches, one swamp monster and a goblin of some sort.

The chorus of shrieks eventually died down, prompting Mr. Micucci to speak again.

"Miss Grimwood says you usually end the warm-up by scarin' Arabics. Are there any around here?"

"Umm...excuse me, coach." Tanis raised her bandaged hand. "I think you mean Scare-obics."

"Ah, thanks sunshine." Coach Micucci said. "Do your Scareabics while I eat this hoagie, alright?"

Once the noise level of the room had gotten loud enough, Sybella made an exasperated groan. "How could Miss Grimwood hire this moron? Even Shaggy was better than him!"

"Nah, she didn't." the goblin jumped in. "The Ghoul Board took care of all the hiring, so Miss Grimwood could get the classrooms ready in time for the new students."

Sybella was a bit surprised they would have hired a human for the position, though she supposed Miss Grimwood had hired Shaggy. Grimwood's was a bit radical in that aspect. Monster schools rarely hired humans, since most of them didn't know enough about the supernatural to do an adequate job teaching them. That was in addition to the strained relations between humans and monsters. She supposed teaching gym was about the simplest thing you could do though, and Miss Grimwood could always train Coach Micucci about how monster bodies work if necessary.

"Ah, fangs a lot." Sybella said, playfully showing the boy her fangs. "I didn't catch your name?"

"Name's Johnny. You?" the goblin articulated.

"Sybella."

"Oh, you're one of the oldies, aren't you?"

Sybella wasn't sure what his comment implied. "No, I'm only 14."

"No, I mean the oldies. The old five students that were here before the remodeling." Johnny clarified.

"Ah, then yes. I'm Dracula's daughter." Sybella replied.

"Sweet! You must get all the dudes!" Johnny commented in an surprisingly outlandish manner.

Sybella didn't know how to respond to that comment. She had never dated anyone, much less kissed them. She had barely even met boys her own age beyond the past few days.

"Uh..." Sybella was going to answer Johnny's comment, but she saw he had already gotten distracted talking to the swamp monster student.

"Don't worry, 'Bella. We're all getting used to how all the new students act. Some of them are quite odd." Winnie reassured.

"Thanks, Winnie." Sybella said. She hoped she would eventually get used to her new situation...I mean she would have to, right?

* * *

The rest of gym class was pretty uneventful. After a few more misguided instructions from Coach Micucci, he exhausted himself trying to figure out what he was supposed to teach, and just gave the students a free period for the remainder of the period.

She only had one more class for the day, which was the one she was most looking forward to. Sybella walked into the Human Studies classroom, room 69 and quickly found a seat toward the back of the room.

She sat next to another female vampire who looked approximately her age.

"Hi." Sybella said, turning to face her classmate.

"Hey, I'm Alexis."

"Sybella."

"Nice to meet you, Sybella. So what made you interested in taking this class?"

"I've read lots of books about humans, though I've never really met too many besides a few." Sybella explained. "I'd love to know more about them. How about you?"

"Ah, my dad was a vampire who mated with a human girl. My dad is sort of a ladies' man, he sleeps around quite a bit. I guess I met my mother when I was born, but my jerk of a dad dumped her. Still haven't seen her since." Alexis replied.

"I can relate." Sybella got out one last comment, before the instructor entered the room and began speaking.

"Good afternoon, class. I am Mrs. Griffin, and this is Human Studies class. Let's start off class saying one thing you know about humans." Mrs. Griffin prompted. "Why don't you start us off, Harry." she pointed to a male wizard.

"Humans don't understand the supernatural or magic. Damn Muggles!" Harry replied.

"Clearly you've read the works of J.K. Rowling." Mrs. Griffin smiled. She appeared to be human herself, so Sybella presumed she must have gotten whatever reference Harry was making. "How about you, Alexis?"

"Humans are imperfect."

"As are we all, Alexis." Mrs. Griffin smiled. "Sarah?" she pointed to a witch towards the back. She was wearing some sort of face makeup, along with a heavy amount of eyeshadow. A lot of witches tended to go for a looks that the humans called "goth," and clearly Sarah was no exception.

"Humans fear what they misunderstand, and often don't think about the impact their actions have on other species." Sarah stated.

"Very good, Sarah. Sybella?"

"Human-monster relations have been poor ever since the Salem Witch Trials, but it's important to know that there are some good humans out there." She thought of her old gym coach and his two dogs as she articulated her thought, who despite their initial gut reaction, ended up being quite nice once you got to know them.

"Impressive, Sybella! I wish more ghouls were thinking like you." Mrs. Griffin declared.

Mrs. Griffin's praise made the vampire princess a happy girl. Clearly this was going to be a very interesting and thought-provoking class.

* * *

After a long day of classes, Sybella was starving and couldn't wait to have dinner with her friends. Though she genuinely wondered how their classes were, she was admittedly far more excited to share what she had learned about humans today in Human Studies.

"Hi Sybella!" Tanis greeted. "How was your class?"

"Fangtastic." Sybella said, nearly bursting to share her excitement with her friend. She stopped herself for a moment, before replying "but what I really want to hear about is all of your classes."

Sybella had finally gotten to a place of peace, at least for now. Maybe it didn't matter that she was going through all these scary physical and emotional changes, because she had confidence in herself and her friends. She had come to terms with the fact that it didn't really matter who she would be in the future, as long as she was happy with herself now.

* * *

 _Meanwhile…_

* * *

It was a cold night in the Barren Bog. The wind howled through the scraggly trees, and the dead grass blew vigorously against the sea of muddy water. A demented figure limped through the dark green swamp water, clearly struggling to maintain its already slow pace. It grinned a malicious smile, as it saw a vine slowly creeping down by its feet.

"How long have I been asleep?" it asked the vine.

"Three years." answered the vine, which was connected to a large circular being.

" _Three_ years? I still feel...so...weak. But not for long." the figure grinned. "Soon those Grimwood girls will regret messing with the Witch of the Web, Revolta!"

* * *

 **Author's note:**

*Insert dramatic sound effect here*

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Fangs for the Memories. I'll admit it was a bit hard to write, just because there was so much I wanted to do and say and explain! I hope it doesn't seem like any of the scenes were cut short, though I didn't want it to be too much longer considering it's already almost 10,000 words, which is pretty long for a first chapter.

It was super fun writing for Sybella, and even not being a person who's remotely into fashion, I really enjoyed creating Sybella's look!

Anywho it's reference time!

\- The last names of all of Sybella's teachers are references to the gang's current voice actors, Matthew Lillard, Grey Griffin, Frank Welker and Kate Micucci. I also used Frank's first name for Coach Micucci, just as it sort of fit well with where I wanted to go with the character.

\- The room numbers of Sybella's classrooms (69, 88 and 93) are all symbolic. Room 69 is a reference to 1969, the year Scooby-Doo first began airing. Room 88 is a reference to 1988, the year _Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School_ was released. 93 is symbolic of the fact that the movie is 93 minutes long.

\- The bands which Sybella likes, Nightmare and Sparkles are from _The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show_ episode "The Neon Phantom of the Roller Disco." The Hex Girls are recurring characters which appear in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video films Witch's Ghost and Legend of the Vampire, in addition to one _What's New, Scooby-Doo?_ episode and two _Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated_ episode.

\- The Vampire Rock Music Festival t-shirt which Sybella wears is a reference to the festival of the same name from _Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire_.

\- Jacob's story about the girl falling in love with a vampire and a werewolf was an obvious reference to _Twilight_. I've admittedly never read the books myself, though I've heard a bit about them from friends. Jacob and Bella are also the same names of the characters in the book.

\- The "Muggle" comment that Harry makes is pretty self-explanatory, though if for some reason you didn't catch it, it's a reference to Harry Potter. I thought if I threw a Twilight reference in there, I might as well do Harry Potter as well given this is a story about the supernatural, after all!

Oh and just a brief little note for those of you following my other fanfic, Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake as well. I unfortunately have a very busy-real life, so my thought is that I'll try to switch off between the two just so they're getting updated semi-consistently. In example, I'll write one chapter of this fanfic, then write a chapter Coast to Coast before writing/posting another chapter for this fanfic. I know it can be difficult waiting for a good fanfic to update, so I think that's probably the best way to keep all my readers happy :)

Anyways, thank you so much for reading this! Reviews are always welcomed and appreciated, so if you have any thoughts after reading this I always enjoy hearing what I'm doing well and knowing what I could improve upon.


	2. The Start of a Boo-tiful Friendship

_September 8_

 _Everything feels like it's changing...but that's okay._

 _In the past week, you have made several new friends - most prominently, Alexis and Callie from Human Studies and Creative Writing class. You've also slightly grown apart from your old friends, but in some ways, you've also strengthened the friendships. It's normal to go through periods where you spend less time with a close friend, and that doesn't mean the friendship is ending._

 _You've also developed a broader view of life in the past week. You have a greater appreciation for the diverse world around you, which is exhilarating yet frustrating. It's amazing to see that the world is bigger than Grimwood's, and it feels like life is full of endless possibilities. On the other hand, the world also seems a lot scarier, especially after learning about how horrible humans can be to monsters. The bigotry and anger towards other people you don't even really know horrifies you, and it amazes you that humans can be so cruel for no apparent reason._

 _Most importantly, you've begun to learn to be yourself regardless of what anyone else thinks of you. However, you still feel innocent and sheltered at Grimwood's, and wonder if people will take advantage of you because of that. It's easy to say you'll be yourself, but it quickly becomes tough when actually putting the philosophy into practice._

 _Remember that you are a brave vampire princess who is ready to take on whatever the world throws at you._

* * *

Sybella put down her pencil on the desk as she did every morning. She always tried to end her journal entries with something positive, even if she didn't necessarily always feel in a positive mood when she was writing it.

Today, however, she felt in relative high spirits. Her first class of the day was health with her four best friends, which naturally put her in a good mood. She also mentally amused herself with the thought of the gym coach trying to teach health. The three classes she had with Mr. Micucci so far had been much like the first day, where the gym coach seemed very disinterested in actually teaching his students.

She also worried a bit about how exactly he would do at teaching health. Last week Thursday, he had done an overview of the course, though he hadn't actually taught any material. Today, the class would be discussing the male anatomy, which Sybella had hoped would be taught to her in a delicate and sensitive manner. Based on Mr. Micucci's behavior so far, the purple-haired vampiress didn't hold out much hope.

A daydreamy gaze over to her alarm clock showed the vampire princess that it was nearly 8:30am, meaning her class would be starting in about a half an hour.

Rubbing her tired eyes, Sybella walked over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. Her mind instinctively went for a casual red t-shirt and running shorts, though she quickly remembered that she didn't need to dress in her exercise clothes given they didn't do any exercise on days that health was taught. Pushing the t-shirt aside, Sybella grabbed a blue printed lace-up top, which had green speckles scattered across the front.

Though she wore a fancy top, Sybella decided to live dangerously and wear a casual pair of black sweatpants to give the outfit a slightly more edgy look. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she noticed that the lacy top was somewhat revealing of her chest, and showed a small portion of her white bra. Sybella wasn't the type of girl to show off her sexuality, so she decided to quickly remedy the issue by putting a light blue tank top in between the bra and lace top. The tank top was definitely one of the more lighter pieces of clothing that Sybella owned. The blue-clad girl generally preferred a darker, more vampiric look, though she was still experimenting with her fashion as girls often did at that age. She also was beginning to get acquainted with the idea of showing skin, and figuring out exactly how much she should show without being too revealing felt like rocket science to the 14-year-old girl.

8:45.

Sybella opened the old, creaky door to her bedroom and glanced down the hallway. No one was there, as usual. The girl began walking out into the drafty hallway and down the stairs. Just as she was about to reach the bottom of the staircase, she caught a glimpse of a tentacle out of the corner of her eye.

While one would normally be terrified by this, Sybella smiled and began walking towards it.

"Hey, Ollie." Sybella waved, as she gazed upon a large purple octopus in a butler uniform. The creature appeared to be going down to Winnie's room, who must have ordered something special for breakfast.

It was a nice day out however, so Sybella was going to get herself a rotten crabapple for a quick pick-me-up before she went to health class. Glancing at her watch, Sybella noticed it was already nearly 8:55.

Miss Grimwood awaited Sybella at the bottom of the stairs.

"Good morning, Sybella!" Miss Grimwood chirped. "Why, don't you look lovely today?"

"Fangs a lot, Miss Grimwood!" Sybella replied to the bubbly headmistress. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm nearly late for my health class and I still haven't eaten yet."

"Oh, I think I can remedy that issue for you!" Miss Grimwood smiled, as she whistled. A floating white hand came almost instantly. "Thumbs, please go get Sybella a freshly rotten crabapple from our garden, post haste!"

"It was crabapples that you liked, correct?" the headmistress asked.

"Yes, fangs for remembering." Sybella bared her fangs playfully.

The hand quickly returned with an apple for the vampiress.

"Thank you, Thumbs! That's all for now, but I'll be sure to let you know if I require your assistance again." Miss Grimwood waved the hand off, as Sybella made her way towards the health classroom.

"See you later, Miss Grimwood!" Sybella raised her right hand and waved to the headmistress.

* * *

Sybella made it with about a minute to spare to health class.

"Hey Sybella!" Tanis greeted. "We were wondering where you went!"

"Sorry, I'm afraid I'm moving a bit slowly this morning." Sybella answered.

Mr. Micucci cleared his throat at the front of the classroom, signaling the class that he was about to start. The classroom they were in for health was very modest. It was, in fact, decorated very similarly to all the other classrooms. Halloween decorations hung from the ceiling precariously, the walls were a drab shade of white. Mr. Micucci stood at the front of the classroom, in front of his wooden desk which appeared to have received a fair amount of use.

"Alright! Let's talk about your bodies!" Mr. Micucci proclaimed.

Sybella already felt disgusted. Even if her expectations were low, it seemed that Mr. Micucci didn't have any sense of maturity or professionalism when discussing a delicate topic such as this.

"So, we'll start with the weiner!" Micucci announced.

Sybella felt like she was going to barf. Clearly she was going to learn something that would scar her for life.

"When a dude gets excited, his ding-a-ling tells him by standing at attention."

She could hear Phantasma and several others giggling in the back, trying to be discreet. She didn't blame them though really, surely any respected health teacher wouldn't begin with words like "weiner" and "ding-a-ling."

"I'll demonstrate with this here prop." Mr. Micucci dug under his desk and pulled out an old beat-up jack in the box. The sleazy instructor held the toy sideways so the opening was facing towards his students, and began winding the handle. As he wound the toy, Micucci narrated the "demonstration" for his mortified students.

"Excitement building, excitement building, excitement building, and...BAM!"

The rusty spring of the jack-in-the-box sproinged open, standing erect and facing the horrified students.

Sybella raised her thick right eyebrow in a questioning manner, while Tanis's jaw was wide open.

"Does it actually sound like that?" Tanis gasped, clearly terrified.

Even for how disgusted Sybella was at Micucci's crude demonstration, she still couldn't help succumb to Tanis's adorable innocence.

"No, sweetie." Sybella said as she tightly hugged the mummy to comfort her.

Sybella didn't know much about "ding-a-lings" as Mr. Micucci put it, but she knew enough to be sure that it sounded nothing like that.

* * *

After a very surprising remainder of health class (which Sybella preferred not to recount in her mind), the blue-shirted girl was on her way to her next class, Human Studies. This was the class she enjoyed the most. Mrs. Griffin never failed to make the class interesting, and quite frankly Sybella found it eye-opening to learn about the outside world which she never previously even gave so much as a thought to.

She quickly shifted her gaze to the dimly lit right side of the hallway, to see her friend Alexis walking just ahead of her.

"Hey, Alexis." Sybella smiled as Alexis turned to face her.

"Sybella! Hi!" Alexis seem caught off guard by the other vampire's presence, despite they had the same class together every other day. "Ready for today's class?"

Sybella wasn't exactly sure why she wouldn't be ready, after all, there was very little homework and nothing much to prepare for. "Yep. How about you?"

Alexis just nodded and made her way into the classroom. Sybella found her behavior a bit odd, especially given that she couldn't think of any reason why Alexis would be so stilted around her. Maybe Alexis was just feeling shy today.

Shrugging the thought off, Sybella made her way into the semi-crowded classroom and weaved between the desks to get to her own, next to Alexis. The chair squeaked as the vampire sat on it and leaned over to set down her books. Sybella quickly brushed a stray eyelash out of her right eye, and noticed that Mrs. Griffin was about ready to start class.

"Welcome back everyone on this wonderful gloomy Thursday afternoon." Mrs. Griffin greeted.

A quick look out the window showed that it was indeed a very lovely day. It was very cool outside and the winds were gusting vigorously, swaying the trees back and forth like toothpicks. It was the type of day most humans would probably hate, but being a vampire, Sybella loved a nice cool gust of wind, especially when it blew through her hair.

"Today, we shall discuss human grooming rituals." Mrs. Griffin announced. "Humans groom themselves in similar ways to supernatural beings: they brush their teeth, floss every morning, and wash their hair. However, there are many ways which humans groom themselves differently from us."

Mrs. Griffin grabbed a small black remote and pointed it up towards a projector hanging precariously from the ceiling. As the machine warmed up, the powerpoint which Mrs. Griffin had prepared for the day slowly began coming into focus. The screen showed several odd images of various human grooming products, which monsters had no use for.

The first image was of a small plastic container marked "instant acne remover." Mrs. Griffin quickly elaborated on the foreign object.

"This is called acne cream. Humans, especially teenage humans, apply it several times a day to get rid of something called acne. Acne is usually caused by any excess dirt on the skin or raging hormones, which is why so many teenagers have it."

A student in a red shirt and blue shorts raised his hand.

"Yes, Harry?" Mrs. Griffin asked.

"Why don't monsters get acne then?" Harry replied.

"Ah, excellent question!" Mrs. Griffin perked up. "Monsters' body hormones are much more regulated than humans, for the most part. For monsters, their bodies don't create as much excess hormones that cause acne breakouts. For undead humans, such as zombies, mummies and ghosts, their bodies have no reason to create hormones, since they are technically not living and don't need many nutrients to thrive."

Mrs. Griffin pointed at the object to the right of the acne cream, which was a yellow tube with red lettering.

"This item is called chapstick. Can anyone tell me what humans do with this?"

Another student, a small werewolf with speckled brown paws, raised his hand.

"Ah, Charlie. Yes?"

"Do you give it to all your best chaps? You know, like how they say "chap" for friend in Britain?" Charlie answered.

Mrs. Griffin let out a giggle. "Good try Charlie, but not quite. They use it to moisturize their lips."

Mrs. Griffin changed the slide on the powerpoint to reveal a large white bottle of some sort.

"Which brings us to our next item." Mrs. Griffin continued. "This is called moisturizer. Humans use it to moisturize their bodies, usually hands or feet."

Sybella was a bit surprised by this item: it seemed so obvious, yet she would have never thought of it. Monsters bodies were usually naturally soft, and she knew some ghouls' bodies naturally moisturized themselves, so she figured that's why she had never heard of such a thing in the monster realm.

"Can anyone tell me what this is?" Mrs. Griffin inquired, pointing to the screen, which now showed another white bottle with blue lettering which read "nasal allergy spray."

Silence overtook the room, and no one raised their hand.

"No one knows?" Mrs. Griffin gave the class a look of surprised. "Alright then, humans use this because many of them are allergic to natural things outside, such as pollen from trees and plants. They just insert it into their nose, spray it once or twice, and their allergies are taken care of for the day!"

Sybella had read about humans having an excessive amount of allergies in books written by human authors. Gluten, soy, and dairy allergies were practically through the roof from what she had heard. Don't even get her started on peanut allergies.

"Now, for the fun interactive part!" Mrs. Griffin chirped. "Humans wear an excessive amount of makeup. To demonstrate, I have brought in some which I purchased at a human store this morning."

Mrs. Griffin held up a large leather handbag which had seemingly every kind of makeup you could imagine. Everyone in the class was amazed and awe-struck at this exotic and beautiful display of products. That is, everyone except Sarah, a brown-haired witch wearing silk pants and a "Wulfsmooon" band t-shirt. Sarah's expression was almost haughty and disinterested, as she seemed to roll her eyes at the "immature" ghouls who hadn't discovered makeup yet. By the looks of her face and body, she clearly was an expert with the beauty aids, as her entire face and hands were coated in body makeup. Her face was slathered in eyeliner, and the eyeshadow gave her face such a smokey-eyed look that Sybella thought her face was going to catch fire any minute.

Following the lead of the rest of the girls, Sybella ran up excitedly to the front of the classroom where the leather makeup bag sat, which opened Sybella's mind to a whole new level of cosmetic possibility.

Sybella looked over to see Alexis, who had gotten her hands on what she believed to be an eyelash curler (which she had heard about in human literature).

"Ooh, what's this?" Alexis said innocently, before opening the eyelash curler and closing it over her entire eyelid. "Owww! It's attacking my face!" she yelled.

Mrs. Griffin quickly ran over to remedy the situation, as Alexis continued to tug and pull her right eyelid along with the curler attempting to escape.

"Open it!" Mrs. Griffin instructed sharply. Alexis did as she was told, and had an immediate look of relief on her face. "This is how you use an eyelash curler."

The teacher showed Alexis how to properly use the device, delicately opening and closing it on her eyelashes as if it were effortless.

"Oh!" Alexis nodded sheepishly. "Thanks."

"It's no problem, Alexis. We're all just learning here! Please let me know if anyone needs help...we don't need another eyelash curler fatality." Mrs. Griffin responded.

Another student picked up a sparkly container of lip gloss, sloppily applying it all over her face in thick increments. The other students noticed and began to giggle at the poor girl's new clownish look.

"It's okay, Jessica." Mrs. Griffin reassured. "Just apply it very lightly across the outline of your lips, as if you were drawing with a pencil."

Jessica did as she was told, and looked much better. Her lips now shined a sharp shade of ruby red.

Sybella noticed a container marked "eyeshadow," which she quickly picked up and attempted to figure out how to apply it. It would be very difficult, considering she was a vampire and couldn't actually see her reflection in a mirror. However, she still had some confidence, as she had a general idea where every part of her body was from memory, and had gotten quite a bit of practice over the years with clothes and such.

In a thin line, Sybella gracefully applied the eyeshadow across the bottom of her eyes, making sure not to use too much so she wouldn't look silly. Of course, looking in a mirror wouldn't help as she couldn't see where her eyes were, so she would have to rely on other classmates to tell her how she looked.

"How do I look?" Sybella asked Alexis, who was standing directly next to her.

"Wow, Sybella!" Alexis responded, as Sybella did a fashion model-esque twirl to accentuate her new look. "You look really hot!"

The vampire princess felt a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling inside of her. She hadn't expected to actually look good, in fact, she had expected to look silly like most of the other girls who were experimenting. Even Sarah, the witch who looked like she had bathed in makeup this morning, smiled at Sybella.

"You look fierce, girl!" Sarah remarked.

"Thanks!" Sybella replied, not really knowing how to respond to a comment such as that. She had been called cute and pretty before, but never "hot" or "fierce." It was definitely a new look for the vampire, and apparently people must have liked it.

* * *

The girls continued trying on makeup throughout the class period. After having this thought, Sybella paused a minute. Looking around, only the female students were trying on makeup, whilst all the males were sitting quietly in their seats.

"Mrs. Griffin?" Sybella inquired.

"Yes, Sybella. Do you have a question for me?" Mrs. Griffin said sweetly.

"Yes, I do. Why are only the female students experimenting with makeup? I would think the males would want to as well." Sybella observed.

"That is an interesting observation, Sybella, and it's a point I was going to make at the end of class today, anyways. I suppose there's no harm in doing it now, though."

Mrs. Griffin tried to raise her voice so it could be heard over the loud chatter of the classroom, mainly coming from the girls up front, who were now experimenting with foundation and blemish creams.

"Sybella has made an intriguing discovery. Whilst all of the female students experiment with different kinds of makeup, the men are simply sitting quietly. This is very similar to human culture, so can anyone tell me why is this?"

"Oh...is it, like, a sexism thing?" Alexis commented.

"Are you implying that I'm being a sexist, mamacita?" a student named Joey asserted.

"No, it is not." Mrs. Griffin affirmed. "Except maybe what you just said, Joey." Joey blushed in his seat, slumping down as not to be noticed in his poor attempt at a joke.

"Can anyone else tell me why none of the men are putting on makeup?" Mrs. Griffin questioned.

"Because it's for girls." Sarah said matter-of-factly.

"Alright Sarah, you seem to know quite a lot about makeup." Mrs. Griffin noticed. "Can you elaborate on this point a bit?"

"Sure. Makeup is, like, a feminine thing, and in human culture, usually only girls wear makeup. Guys have no need for it, well usually anyway."

"Excellent analysis, Sarah." Mrs. Griffin applauded. "Generally, it is only deemed socially accepted for women to wear makeup, and often men are ridiculed for wearing it. I'm presuming this is why the men didn't come up and experiment with any of the products I bought. Correct?"

The male students all nodded their heads.

"So...are you saying we need to not follow that example in monster culture?" Alexis asked curiously.

"No, not at all. In fact, I would argue that it's ultimately your choice how much you want to fit in with the societal norms as you are making your journeys through adolescence." Mrs. Griffin suggested. "You can choose to follow everyone else's example and do what's popular, or you can embrace your quirks and try to be as unique as you can. It all comes down to your personality, really."

This idea gave Sybella a pang of hope. She always feared getting lost in the crowd, so maybe it would be a viable path to embrace her inner quirkiness and just be the best person she could be in life. Nevertheless, it wasn't worth worrying herself over now and she was sure she would figure it out as she "made her way through the journey of adolescence," as Mrs. Griffin would say.

* * *

The blue-clad vampiress walked out of the library, which she had been studying and doing her homework in for the past few hours. The library was a vibrantly lit area of the school, with reflective glass windows letting in rays of sunshine across all the otherwise dull-colored studying tables.

"Hey, Tanis!" Sybella waved as she saw the shadow of the mummy's white wrapping paper.

"Hi Sybella!" Tanis chirped happily.

"So, how was your math class today?" Sybella inquired.

"Terrific. We discussed probabilities in the form of permutations and combinations. It was so exciting!"

What her mummy friend just said didn't really mean much to Sybella, as she was never skilled at math and was always more an English person. It was quite interesting to Sybella how her friends were all skilled in different areas: Phantasma was skilled in theater, Tanis was a whiz in history, Elsa was brilliant when it came to math and science and Winnie was a fan of athletics.

"Glad you liked it then." Sybella commented, unsure of how else to further the conversation (given she didn't really know anything about the subject).

"How was your...you had Human Studies class today, right?" Tanis asked, her face morphing into a confused look.

"Right, good memory!" Sybella smiled. "It was great, we learned about makeup and human cosmetics. Notice the eyeshadow I'm wearing?" Sybella did another model-like twirl, which probably looked far cuter than she wanted it to.

"Sybella, you look like such a tough girl!" Tanis smiled, sort of unconfident with her friend's new look. Tanis had always been super adorable and innocent, and was the goody-two shoes of the group. But she was happy and cheerful, and seemed to like herself, which is all that really mattered. She imagined this new "tougher" look put the mummy on edge a bit.

"Are...are you going to wear that all the time now?" Tanis stuttered awkwardly.

"Umm...I'm not really sure." Sybella replied, realizing she didn't really have a plan as to if she was going to wear makeup consistently. Sure, she looked good in it, but there was something to be said for authenticity and natural beauty.

"Come on, the others will probably be at dinner now." Tanis quickly changed the subject.

"Oh...oh yeah." Sybella suddenly felt a bit self-conscious about her look, unsure whether it made her look fake or disingenuine. Of course, she wanted to be pretty, but not at the cost of looking like she was trying too hard.

Still lost in her head, Sybella nervously brushed her hair aside to scratch an itch she had on her neck, before flipping it to the other side. The strands below her neck rested neatly on her shoulder as Sybella quickly noticed her friend had already begun the trek to the dining room.

* * *

The dinner was delicious as always, Miss Grimwood had made pizza with all the fixings: spiderwebs, snails and tadpole tails, as well as a bit of blood dip for Sybella on the side. Though Sybella was a very physically fit girl, she could probably eat and drink blood all day. She imagined it was like chocolate was to most humans: irresistible.

"So, how was everyone's day?" Miss Grimwood asked as she served herself a piece of pizza, the cheese very stringy and decadent as a small strand sloppily fell off back onto the pan.

"Fangtastic!" Sybella chirped, trying to fake that she was happy, even if she was a bit self-conscious about the eyeshadow she was currently wearing.

"Ooh, Sybella!" Phantasma spoke up. "Your eyes look so cool! What did you do?"

Sybella suddenly felt a pang of nervousness. "Uh, I put on something called eyeshadow today in my Human Studies class. I guess humans wear it all the time." Sybella tried to downplay her new look, as she anxiously twirled a strand of purple hair in her fingers.

"It looks badass!" Winnie blurted out, before realizing she was in front of Miss Grimwood, who gave her a disapproving look.

"Umm…thanks, guys." Sybella let out a half-smile, before self-consciously slipping back into her seat.

Luckily for the vampiress, Miss Grimwood tapped her fork on the side of her wine glass and distracted the other ghouls from the awkward conversation they were currently having.

"Girls, I have an announcement to make. Beginning tomorrow evening, we will begin practicing for our annual Grimwood versus Calloway volleyball match. I believe you all have expressed an interest in being on the team again this year, correct?"

The five girl ghouls all nodded in affirmation at Miss Grimwood's question.

"Excellent! So, essentially, it will be the same time as every year. We have two other girl ghouls who are interested in playing on the team. I believe you know them, Sybella?"

Sybella perked up in surprise. "I do?"

"According to the class lists, you do. Callie Evanson and Sarah Carpenter? If I'm not mistaken, I think they are in your Creative Writing and Human Studies classes."

"Oh...oh yeah. I know them." Sybella replied meekly. Once Miss Grimwood said their names, the vampire instantly remembered who the two girls were. She didn't know their last names however, which threw her off a bit as she hadn't processed the fact that she didn't actually know that much about either of them, other than a bit about Callie.

"Practice will take place at around 7pm, after dinner. Ms. Evanson and Ms. Carpenter have also requested to join us for dinner, seeing as they will be staying here so late." Miss Grimwood elaborated. "Apologies for interrupting girls, you may go back to your previous conversation if you wish."

"Sure. What were we talking about again?" Elsa asked.

"We were talking about our days." Sybella quickly butted in, as to avoid going back into the conversation about makeup which was making her feel oddly self-conscious. Being an awkward vampire teenager sucked sometimes, no pun intended (or was it?)

"Oh yeah, in health today we learned about jack…" Phantasma began, being quickly interrupted by the lace-topped vampire.

"Uh, yeah, Jack...Nickoli, Private Eye. It's a health TV show." Sybella awkwardly cut in, not wanting to go through the embarrassment of Mr. Miccuci's crude anatomy pun again. The other girls eyed Sybella a bit, confused as to why she covered for Mr. Micucci presumably. She hadn't exactly intended to cover for him, but then again, she was admittedly a bit amused by Coach Micucci's no-filter personality.

* * *

 _September 9_

 _Yesterday, you discovered something incredibly common in the world of a teenage human girl: makeup. However, this worried you most of the evening. For whatever reason, you became incredibly self-conscious about how you looked and if you even deserved to look that way. While doing so is very common in the human culture (you can't imagine why), this isn't necessarily common in ghoul culture, and you would definitely look out of place if you wore it all the time. On the other hand, Mrs. Griffin did say you could be as quirky and unique as you wanted...and maybe you want to wear makeup. Maybe that's part of your identity now._

 _You comfort yourself, wondering if you'll ever find your true identity, or if you deserve to have the identity you want for yourself. What if going against cultural norms is wrong, or maybe you'll be made fun of. Maybe no one will like you for your true self. Maybe…_

* * *

Sybella had to stop herself since her journal sessions were supposed to be constructive, and if she were honest with herself, she was just rambling and making herself more worked up. Someday, she hoped she would read these journal entries again and laugh about how silly her worries were. Even if she knew what she was feeling was just teenage angst, it still felt so raw and real.

Sighing heavily, Sybella opened her dresser drawer and tried to pick out a cheery outfit (it was Friday, after all). She felt in a dressy mood today, so she was elated when she remembered the blue long-sleeved dress she had worn to her father's birthday party one year. The dress had gold prints embroidered all across the front, the patterns swirling throughout every few inches of the dress. She of course would never let anyone know this (she had an anti-cutesy reputation to keep up after all), but she felt so fancy and important whenever she wore this particular dress.

After completing the outfit with her treasured bat choker now snug and comfy around her neck, Sybella opened her bedroom door with a creak and began making her way down the stairs. It was a bit harder than usual, as the dress was so long that she was a bit worried she might trip over it.

Sybella glanced at the clock on the wall, which was covered by spiderwebs. It was only 8:30, meaning for once, she actually had time to get her breakfast herself.

The vampire slowly walked out to the courtyard to grab another crabapple, humming the tune to The Hex Girls' "Petrified Bride."

* * *

"Good morning, students. Today we will be discussing what makes a good story." Miss Lillard declared. "Does anyone have any insights into this?"

Callie raised her hand, looking perky and eager to please.

"Yes, Kelly!" Miss Lillard called.

"It's Callie. A good story has a lot of thorough description, well-developed plotlines and crisp dialogue."

"I'm terribly sorry for forgetting your name, Callie." Miss Lillard apologized. "Yes, those are all excellent principles to follow if one wants to create a good story."

Miss Lillard glanced around the classroom for other hands, but saw only one.

"Sybella?"

"A good story needs unique characters. Trying to identify with a normal character is never as fun."

"Stupendous, Sybella! That's exactly something that can make or break a story. Characters need to be unique and relatable." Miss Lillard complimented.

Sybella smiled, even if she felt somewhat silly trying to make herself feel better with the whole "unique" train of thought.

* * *

Class passed rather quickly, in fact so quickly that Sybella was surprised when she heard the bell ring.

"Alright class, I guess that's all the time we're going to have for this week. Have a wonderful weekend, and don't forget your first story outline is due on Monday!" Miss Lillard reminded.

"Hi Sybella!" Callie greeted. "Did you hear I'll be staying for dinner tonight? I'm on the volleyball team, so it doesn't make sense for me to go all the way home just to come back a few hours later for practice."

"Ah yes, I did hear." Sybella replied. "I'm on the volleyball team as well, actually."

"Seriously? That's so cool!" Callie responded elatedly. "We're going to be teammates!"

"I've been on the team the past several years. It's a ton of fun really, you'll love it."

"I'm looking super forward to it! That and dinner, I hear Miss Grimwood's an amazing cook."

"Yeah, she really is. Oh, what are you going to be writing your story outline on?" Sybella asked.

"I'm thinking about writing it about something that happened when I was a kid. My brother and I went to go clean up all the trash off our family's beach at our cabin, and we saw this huge shark. It was so frightening; I actually had to save my brother from being eaten alive!"

Sybella gazed excitedly at Callie, motioning for her to continue.

"You'll just have to read the story for yourself once I write it!" Callie laughed. "What are you writing your story about?"

"I'm thinking about doing a fiction story, where this human tries to make her way into the monster world after she learns about how beautiful it is."

"Oh, that sounds so cool! I can't wait to read it!"

Sybella thought she would sort of base the story off her own experience. Though she had never told anyone, she had somewhat considered going into the human world once she had graduated from Grimwood's. Even if the monster and human world wasn't really separated, most monsters lived in areas were very few humans knew about or inhabited, as to avoid running into them. However, Sybella felt herself get excited with the idea of someday exploring the human world for herself and learning about a different culture than her own. That was just a pipe dream though; she didn't have any concrete plans to travel and it was just a fantasy of sorts, which she had acquired after her past few weeks of Human Studies class.

"I've got to get to class. See you later!" Callie said before quickly jogging out the door as not to be late.

"See you tonight!" Sybella waved.

* * *

Sybella and Tanis made their way to art class, which was beginning to become one of Sybella's favorite classes, besides Human Studies. Come to think of it, she didn't really hate any classes - all of them were good in their different and unique ways. Maybe it was the same for humans. _Ugh Sybella, don't get all cutesy on me_ , the vampiress scolded herself.

Sitting down in the cold seat, Sybella shivered a bit, as the dress she was wearing wasn't warm enough in the currently ice-cold room, even if it was otherwise very comfortable.

Mr. Welker spoke up to start the class.

"Today, we shall see what you've learned from the techniques I've taught you these past two weeks. Think of it as a pop quiz, of sorts. Just draw whatever comes to mind."

Sybella had no confidence in her artistic ability. Sure, she liked to doodle a bit when she was bored, but she didn't feel like she could ever do anything professional.

"What are you going to draw, Sybella?" her mummy friend asked.

Sybella gazed dreamily out the window, looking at a tree with a bench underneath it outside. It was one of her favorite benches, and she remembered sitting on it quite a bit after long runs outside in gym class a few years ago.

"Hmm?" Sybella said, still dreamy-eyed.

"What are you drawing?" Tanis repeated again calmly.

"I think I'm going to draw that bench outside under that tree. I doubt it will be good though."

Sybella never really showed anyone her drawings, so she wondered what Tanis would think once she saw how terrible her drawing was.

* * *

The time had come for the students to show Mr. Welker their paintings, and Sybella wished there would have been more time to touch up a few stray marks she had accidentally made.

"Tanis?" Mr. Welker inquired, waiting for the mummy to show her painting.

"Looks great, Tanis." he smiled, as the Egyptian girl showed him her painting: a picture of her mummy case where she kept all the trophies the school had won.

"Sybella?" Mr. Welker asked.

Sybella meekly turned the drawing around, to reveal a flawlessly drawn bench and tree.

"Amazing, Sybella! It looks like I'm looking right at the tree and bench! You have great talent, Ms. Dracula!"

Sybella was shocked. She didn't think her drawing was even slightly good, much less "amazing."

"Can I see, Sybella?" Tanis asked as she tapped the purple-haired vampire on the shoulder.

"Sure, it's not that good though."

Sybella turned around her painting once more for the mummy.

"Sybella, that looks flawless! I can't believe you've never told us you're that good at art!"

Sybella shrugged, surprised once again. "I guess I never knew I was that good."

Something about everyone complimenting her work made Sybella very content and proud. She could draw, and she never even knew it.

* * *

Sybella changed for volleyball practice up in her bedroom, changing from the comfy blue dress into a tank top and jogging shorts, along with a purple headband.

Just as she was adjusting the headband to her liking, she could hear Ollie the octopus ring the dinner gong.

"Dinner is served!" Miss Grimwood shouted from downstairs.

Sybella quickly ran down the staircase, not wanting to be late for dinner, especially when there were guests.

* * *

Miss Grimwood had prepared a scrumptious dinner of spaghetti and beatleballs, covered in a rich poison ivy marinara sauce. To humans, this dinner would be a night of disgust and deadly itching, but the oils in the poison ivy didn't affect monsters like it did humans. It was, in fact, a delightful treat with a slightly sour and tangy taste.

Callie had unintentionally stolen Sybella's seat since she had been upstairs changing, but Sybella didn't particularly mind. She just took the seat next to Callie, to which the perky girl seemed delighted that her friend-in-development decided to sit next to her.

Sarah sat next to Phantasma on the far end of the table.

"So, Sarah, what brought you to Grimwood's?" Miss Grimwood asked.

"My mother and father are powerful sorcerers, in fact, my grandfather is pretty famous. Have you guys ever heard of a guy named Merlin?" Sarah asked matter-of-factly, acting like it was no big deal. Of course, everyone knew who Merlin was, and he was widely known of one of the most powerful sorcerers in all of history. "They heard about Grimwood's being a great school, and after reading the few brochures that were sent, I decided to come here. It's been a great experience so far, and I've loved getting to know new people here."

Sybella felt a bit bad that she misjudged Sarah. Given her behavior in class, she thought Sarah was going to be stuck-up and snooty, but maybe she was just someone who took a bit longer to warm up to.

"Very interesting! How about you, Ms. Evanson?" Miss Grimwood inquired.

"I had actually heard about the remodeling of Grimwood's in the news, and my aunt is on the Ghoul Board. She recommended this place to me, and said after the remodeling, it would be the best monster school out there. I have to say, so far, I'm definitely not disappointed!" Callie chirped.

"So, have you guys ever played volleyball before?" Winnie asked.

"Nope, totally new experience for me." Sarah admitted.

"I played a bunch in elementary and middle school. I love volleyball, it's one of the best sports out there!" Callie replied. "So when's our big game, by the way?"

"October 28, just before Halloween. That's our Meet the Fathers weekend as well. You'll find out more about it as it gets closer." Elsa jumped in.

Sybella had forgotten about Meet the Fathers weekend being moved up. When she was younger, Grimwood's always used to invite all of the girls' fathers on Halloween night. As the kids got older, Miss Grimwood figured they wanted to have their own Halloween party without their fathers watching over their every move. Because of this, it was moved to the weekend before Halloween, which Sybella enjoyed since she would get to have two Halloween celebrations: one with her father and one with her friends.

"I believe everyone's about done with dinner." Miss Grimwood observed. "I'm going to clear the table and I'll meet you all out by the volleyball court in just a second!"

The girls all jumped up from the table, excited to practice out their volleyball skills which hadn't been used in nearly a year.

* * *

The girls walked outside into the crisp night air, where Sarah noticeably shivered a bit from the nip in the air. Clearly, some people's bodies weren't built for the cold.

"So, is this place, like, peaceful on the weekends?" Callie asked.

"Yeah, no one ever really comes out here. It's usually just the five of us hanging out and exploring." Sybella explained.

As if on cue, a young college-aged werewolf came stumbling up the hill next to the volleyball court.

"What up my homies?" he shouted obnoxiously, in a very stupid-sounding voice. "Sorry I missed Father's Day guys, but I was just so busy gettin' my swerve on, you know what I'm sayin' man?"

"Oh my god." Sybella gasped. "I think he's drunk."

"Uh, sir? Can we help you?" Elsa questioned.

"I just want you dudes to know, I love you so much. You've always, like, been there for me, even when people always be tryin' to harsh my mellow!"

Miss Grimwood rushed out of the ghoul school, probably as shocked as the girls were to see this incoherent drunk man.

"Sir, who are you and where did you come from?" Miss Grimwood said in a stern voice.

"Well, it was in West Philadelphia I was born and raised. On the playground, was where I spent most of my days. Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool, and shooting some B-ball outside of the school. But then there were these couple of guys, and they were up to no good, man. They started makin' trouble in my neighborhood!"

"Aww, I remember when I had my first beer." Phantasma giggled.

Everyone looked at Phantasma, as she was only 13 and not old enough to have any alcohol.

"Geez guys, it was a joke!" Phantasma replied. Sybella sometimes forgot that Phantasma's sense of humor had become more obscure and mature over the years.

"Did he seriously just quote Fresh Prince?" Sarah asked in disbelief. When everyone gave her a strange look, she elaborated "It's a theme song from a human TV show."

"Young man, I'll have to call the police to make sure you get the care you need. You've obviously had far too much." Miss Grimwood stated.

"Ah man, why do these haters always gotta be throwin' shade at me, man?" the drunken werewolf shouted, as Miss Grimwood grabbed onto his arm and led him into the school, where the police would be phoned.

Sybella let out a loud huff. "I guess it's not always quiet around here, to answer your question."

Callie giggled at the unfortunate timing of the event, as her strands of her vibrant red hair blew around in the strong wind.

As the girls approached the volleyball court, they saw the Calloway Cadets already there.

"Hey, girls!" a cadet named Baxter called out.

"Don't be too friendly." Sybella whispered to Callie and Sarah. "They'll manipulate you in any way they can."

The cadets also whispered something to each other, which Sybella could have sworn was something about how one of them had a "nice ass." It certainly didn't surprise her, as they'd made several lewd comments like that before.

"What are you doing here?" Tanis asked innocently. "I thought this was our night to practice."

"In your dreams!" a cadet named Miguel shot back. "We've been planning to use this night to practice for two weeks now."

"Suuure you were." Sybella replied with a snarky tone. "Now move off the court, so you can see some real talent."

"Why can't we both play at the same time, against each other I mean? Sort of like a practice match." Sarah suggested.

"That's a great idea!" Tanis smiled. "May the best team win!"

"We'll whoop your asses." Sybella said, clearly upset from Cadets' insolence. It was like the Calloway Cadets had some magical abilities like the ghouls did: the magical ability to turn Sybella into a complete cranky bitch. Words couldn't describe how much she hated the Cadets and their macho attitude towards life.

"Girls, take your places!" Winnie announced.

"Everyone ready?" Elsa checked to make sure everyone was in their positions. "We serve first."

"Of course, we'd want to make sure you girls got the proper head start. After all, men are so much more experienced in sports." Tug bragged.

"Okay, 3, 2" Sybella held up her fingers to count the numbers down. She made sure to leave the middle one up, pointing directly at Tug as she said "1."

And with that, the game was in motion.

With a powerful swing, Winnie hit the ball directly over the net, to which Jamal hit it back over the net effortlessly. Sarah tried to take a swing at the ball to send it over the net again, but to no avail. Calloway 1, Grimwood 0.

* * *

The game had gone as well as it was going to, Grimwood had 15 whereas Calloway had 12. Usually, the games were always very close, unless the Cadets decided to cheat and it didn't get caught by the referees.

"Your turn to serve, Sybella." Phantasma reminded.

Sybella was intending to do a very powerful serve, as that was her biggest strength in the game. Bending down forwards, Sybella swung her arm as hard as she could for a few warm-up moves before she hit the ball. As she was about to swing the ball, she noticed Tug and Grunt staring directly down at the spot where the wind was blowing her shirt, apparently hoping to see some cleavage or whatever sick, perverted thing their minds were thinking about. She was wearing a bra under her t-shirt, so they could only see that, if anything at all. Still, it was her body and she deserved to be able to keep it private.

Though the two cadets staring and grinning initially distracted here, it thankfully gave her a new drive to hit the ball even harder. Moving her arm slightly to the left, she hit the ball as hard as she could over the net and directly into the boys' stupid, misogynistic faces. The cadets both screamed out, as the angry vampiress swung directly for their eyes and hit them dead on.

"Enjoying the view, guys?" Sybella teased irritatedly.

* * *

The rest of the game went by quickly, with the game nearly tied, 18 to 19.

"You've got this one, Sybella." Callie encouraged.

Feeling sweaty and cranky, Sybella jogged over to where the ball had last landed and picked it up off the grassy ground.

With all her might, Sybella turned into a bat, still grasping the ball, and spiked it over the net, just ever so slightly avoiding touching the net.

"We won!" Winnie shouted. "We won! Three howls for Sybella!"

All the ghouls, werewolf and non-werewolf, playfully gave their teammate a congratulatory howl.

"Congrats Sybella! I knew you could do it! Just think, now I can say I have a friend who won our first volleyball match!" Callie chirped in her normal perky voice.

One word, "friend," resonated with the vampiress. She was so happy to have made a new friend who could turn out to be as close as she was with the other four girls currently.

Unexpectedly, Callie spread her arms and began to embrace her vampire friend in a big hug. Callie's warm body pressed against Sybella's, which mirrored the warm and fuzzy feeling Sybella once again felt inside.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

And that's the part where you all say "aww!"

So I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It's been a ton of fun developing each of the girls' personalities, and working some of my own coming-of-age thoughts I had while I was a teenager into here as well, which I'm sure many of us have had at some point.

You've probably also noticed that both chapters start off with a journal entry from Sybella. I thought this would be a fun way to start each chapter, and I plan to continue with this in future chapters.

As always, I worked a few references into this chapter from other shows, both from the Scooby-Doo franchise and non-Scooby related shows and films.

The Wulfsmooon shirt which Sarah was wearing is a reference to the band of the same name in the film Big Top Scooby-Doo!.

The song which Sybella was humming in the courtyard, "Petrified Bride" by the Hex Girls, was in the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode "The Vampire Strikes Back."

The toppings on Miss Grimwood's pizza is the same as the toppings which Sybella listed in Ghoul School, when she was running to get the pizza with her allowance money after Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy had taken them out for a jog.

As Sarah mentions, the drunken werewolf quotes the theme song from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air word-for-word when he's telling where he came from.

Thanks so much to Mr. Spinner for proofreading and critiquing this chapter for me! Speaking of which, you should all check out his fanfic "The Wolfman of Grimwood" on this very site if you get a chance! It intriguingly mixes two of my favorite Scooby movies from the '80s, Ghoul School and Reluctant Werewolf, while also adding some cool sci-fi and supernatural elements to add to the delightfully dark tone.

Comments, favorites/follows and reviews are always welcomed and appreciated!


	3. A Nile in Her Shoes

_September 13_

 _You have gained new perspectives on the world, and your eyes have opened to the immense possibilities out there._

 _While this thought may scare some people, you feel happy, and free, and (excuse the euphemism) alive!_

 _Through your human studies class, you have met new friends, discovered the humans may not be the frightening, torch-wielding monsters that the history books have set them out to be, and additionally, discovered yourself (at least somewhat)._

Her usual morning journal entry was shorter than normal, but the vampiress didn't feel very much in a writing mood today.

It being a Tuesday, she was excited to get to spend a class period of gym with her four core friends. She was also elated for her favorite class, Human Studies. While she had previously preferred classes which offered more concrete, factual knowledge, something about her enjoyed the uncertainty and fluidity of learning about humans.

Sure, there was terminology, lectures, and papers, but the majority of it was just background information that was required to take on the vast sea of knowledge that ensued related to humans.

Sybella let the pen sit idly on her purple desk, not worrying about possible blue ink spillage. She eagerly opened her dresser to reveal a rainbow of different outfits which were precariously shoved in the drawer.

She felt in a semi-cheery mood this morning (well, as cheery as a vampire could be), so her mind gravitated towards a brighter-colored orange blouse. The blouse was leaf-printed, each leaf an autumnish color of yellow. Deciding not to make her outfit look _too_ bright (that's a big no-no in monster fashion), she opened her bottom dresser drawer and located a pair of black sweatpants.

The vampire princess still had a few minutes before class, and thankfully so, seeing as a quick check of her hair revealed that it was currently wild and untamed, as if she had just gotten out of bed...Well, she had just gotten out of bed, but that wasn't the point! Sybella reached behind her head and gracefully grabbed her long purple hair, cupped between both hands.

Hair still in hand, Sybella shuffled over to her desk drawer, where she kept her assorted hairbands and such. Naturally, she chose her favorite purple headband and fwooped it over her hair, unintentionally making a swishing noise as she did it.

Just to add a little extra layer of cuteness (hey, monsters are allowed to be cute too!), Sybella affixed a pink hairpin to the left side of her hair. The hairpin perfectly completed the look and also made the vampiress's hair look extra straight and proper-looking. Adorably, she briefly daydreamed about how cool and mature she must look right now. As a vampire, you had to do everything by feel, as you couldn't see yourself in the mirror...it was annoying at times, but you got used to it after a while.

Having finally completed her getting ready, Sybella began her trek down the stairs with her backpack.

In addition to textbooks, notebooks and folders for school, Sybella had begun carrying human makeup in her backpack, which was a fierce combination of orange and purple. It wasn't a lot of makeup, but it was certainly a fair amount. Okay, maybe that was a lie too. The only human "makeup" she had been brave enough to carry so far was chapstick, which wasn't exactly makeup, but it was certainly a human beauty accessory.

It made the vampiress feel quite a bit more mature, both carrying a common human beauty aid and the thought of someday carrying more. Maybe, eventually she could even work up to eyeshadow. She had never actually seen any monster wear it around Grimwood's, but the pictures of girls wearing eyeshadow intrigued her. They always looked so cool and grown-up, like it was completely effortless for them to look that beautiful.

To anyone else, it would probably sound adorable that she felt edgy using chapstick. But to Sybella, it felt forbidden and badass, for lack of a better word. It was quite silly, but the prospect of putting it on in front of anyone felt far less exciting than doing it in secret. She had never talked to Miss Grimwood about wearing makeup or chapstick, but she doubted the headmistress would really care. She consoled herself with the fact that Phantasma had recently undergone a change in humor style, going from an innocent, jokey tone to a dark, morbid one. Miss Grimwood didn't seem to care about that, so why would she care about this?

Sybella pulled the chapstick container out and began applying it to her lips as she walked down the large staircase. For the life (or death) of her, she would never understand how humans weren't tempted to take a bite out of the chapstick. It was in the shape of an egg after all, and a lot of times, chapsticks were scrumptious flavors like strawberry or cherry! How could anyone resist?

Suddenly, Sybella saw a shadow about to come around the corner. Instinctually, she reached into her backpack and messily shoved the chapstick container in, not wanting anyone to comment on what she was doing.

"Hey Sybella!" Tanis said as she smiled brightly.

"Hey, Tanis! Ready for gym class in a few minutes?"

"You better believe it!" Tanis said, "See you there!"

Sybella went to her normal breakfast spot: in the Grimwood garden. The apples were beginning to become a bit too ripe, aka they were so brown that no fruit could be salvaged any longer. Miss Grimwood had, however, grown some blood oranges which were beginning to ripen into a deliciously rotten treat. The vampiress grabbed the biggest and most rotten fruit, and stuck her fangs into the outer peel, sucking out all the succulent juice.

The orange was quickly nothing more than a shriveled peel, to which Sybella tossed in the nearby garbage.

"Mmm, delectably rotten!" the vampiress lauded, as she stretched out her neck to prepare for the exercise in gym class. Or for that matter, lack of exercise, as Coach Micucci so far hadn't done much of anything other than scar them for life about their bodies. Luckily, today wasn't a health day, and they wouldn't be learning about the female body until Thursday's class. Sybella didn't know what an "ovaly" (or something along those lines) was, but she certainly didn't want to think about it being in her body.

* * *

Sybella entered the gym just a few seconds before class was supposed to start. She quickly jogged over to where she saw Tanis, Phantasma, Winnie and Elsa and stood alongside them, giving a quick out-of-breath wave as she saw Micucci beginning to speak.

"Today, we'll be doin' the Ghoul Board required running exam." Mr. Micucci said plainly.

The class stood in silence, waiting for the coach to continue speaking.

"Well, start runnin'!" Mr. Micucci instructed.

"Aren't you going to time us?" Winnie asked.

"Nah, I've got more important stuff to do." Mr. Micucci replied, pulling a large footlong sandwich out of his gym bag. "This hoagie ain't gonna eat itself!"

Sybella rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed huff, which luckily Mr. Micucci didn't hear. The ghouls began running up and down the length of the gym, until it seemed like their feet were going to fall off.

Tanis checked the clock after an extended period of running, to which she saw half an hour had passed.

"Coach?" she asked sweetly.

"Yeah, sunshine?" Micucci responded.

"How long do we keep running?" she followed.

"I don't know. How much longer can ya run?"

"Not much longer." she whined.

Coach Micucci sighed, and stood up from the chair he was perched in. The chair made a loud creaking noise as the weight left its rickety surface.

"Alrighty, you can stop now." Micucci announced.

"I hope he says free time for the rest of class." Elsa wished.

"Nah, sorry, the Ghoul Board says ya gotta do a couple more tests."

The whole class groaned as Micucci spoke.

"Next test is swimming in the boat. Any of you got a boating license? Because I don't...anymore." Coach Micucci's eyes moved shiftily, seemingly hoping no one would ask for more information.

"Uh...sir?" Winnie asked.

"Yeah? What is it Wanda?"

"It's Winnie, coach. I think you misread that. You probably mean swimming in the _moat._ "

Coach Micucci squinted his eyes as he picked up the piece of paper, which had a "Ghoul Board" logo on it.

"Ah yeah, it is 'moat'. Thanks, Winkie."

Sybella rolled her eyes and let out a stereotypical teenage huff, quiet enough so it was audible by her friends but not Coach Micucci.

"Oh my god." she sighed.

"Okay, let's get out to the moat." Micucci instructed.

* * *

The students followed their coach out to the moat, as he lumbered along, unable to move faster due to his excess weight.

As they arrived at the moat, a crocodile peered out of the water, snapping its jaws viciously at Micucci as he sauntered by.

"Is it safe for ya to swim in there with the alligator?" Micucci asked, uncertain about the animal due to his humanity.

"It's a crocodile, and yes. She's our pet in fact." Sybella replied. "Hey, Allison."

As if on cue, the crocodile emerged from the murky water and snapped its jaws menacingly.

"She's usually quite friendly, it must because you're a stranger." Sybella followed.

"And a human." Phantasma mumbled.

"Okay, this piece a paper here says to swim a Nile and a half." Micucci said.

Everyone's eyes turned to Tanis.

"What? I wasn't making it up all these years." Tanis informed plainly. "It's a real expression, not a pun!"

"How long is a 'Nile', exactly?" Elsa inquired.

"Same as a mile." Tanis replied bluntly. "It's just a better way to measure the length you swam when you factor in water resistance, force of the current, etcetera."

"When I fire this starting gun, you can begin the test. 3, 2, 1!"

Micucci pressed the trigger, and to everyone's surprise, a real bullet emerged and landed directly in the stomach of a zombie student.

"Damn it! I musta grabbed the real gun instead of the one with blanks." Micucci yelled angrily. "Are you okay, Tyler?"

"No harm done." The zombie shrugged, effortlessly taking the bullet out of his stomach with his right arm.

The ghouls (including Tyler) all jumped in the moat and began swimming. If Sybella would have known at the time that humans wore bathing suits, she probably would have found the aspect of swimming in one's regular clothes odd. However, monsters could withstand a lot more heat than a human ever could, and thus they could effortlessly dry their clothes with the jumbo blow dryer in the restroom. It felt like wearing a brand new dry outfit.

The ghouls enjoyed their dip in the moat, splashing each other and swimming around for a while. Coach Micucci had made it clear that he wasn't going to time them, so why not enjoy it?

"How's the swim, Bella?" Winnie asked.

"Ah, pretty good, Winnie. I think I'll need to get out soon though. My eyes are beginning to turn green with all this swampy water."

"Green?" Winnie acted surprised.

"It's an eye condition. If I get too much water in my eyes, they begin to turn a lightish shade of green. Nothing bad really, but it gets a bit uncomfortable when exacerbated."

"Ah." Winnie replied.

Meanwhile, Phantasma and Tanis were playfully splashing one another. Ironically, neither of them were actually getting wet. Tanis was dressed in a waterproof wrapping to prevent it from shrinking, while Phantasma was a spirit and thus the water literally went right through her. The only way Phanty could possibly get wet was if the water went in her mouth, for obvious reasons of nutrition and hydration which her body needed to sustain its energy level.

Elsa was doing the backstroke across the pond, sloppily splashing whoever happened to get in her way.

The girls had almost completed their nile-and-a-half swim, when Micucci blew a whistle.

"Okay, that should be good. Swim back from wherever you're at, and let's get started on the next test."

The students did as they were told, and stopped their casual swim for a more fast-paced race towards Micucci.

* * *

The students followed Coach Micucci back towards the entrance of the school, where two stone gargoyles were perched atop the Grimwood's sign.

All of a sudden, one of the gargoyles began to move its wing.

"Did you guys know that those were alive?" Tyler asked.

Sybella nodded simply.

"Why yes, they're our pets. They keep guard over the school, just in case anything strange should happen while one of us isn't looking. How are you guys doing up there?" Sybella called.

A duet of "goods" came in response to the vampire's question.

Tyler looked a bit surprised at first, but quickly seemed to adjust to the idea that the gargoyles were alive.

"Alright, next we're gonna test your sports skills. I understand some of you are on the volleyball team?" Micucci inquired.

Sybella, Tanis, Winnie, Elsa and Phantasma all nodded their heads.

"Great, then you know what to do." Mr. Micucci instructed.

"Wait, coach! I don't know what to do!" Johnny, a goblin student asked. "I've never played volleyball before."

"Eh." Micucci shrugged. "One of the girls'll teach ya."

Sybella fought back the urge to sneer at the coach's lack of initiative for teaching his own students. It was his job, after all.

"It's quite easy, actually!" Winnie replied, as she began teaching Johnny how to play.

All of a sudden, a chorus of swearing could be heard over the fence from the Calloway Military School.

Phantasma giggled a bit. "Sounds like someone's having fun."

"If 'banging a hoe' is your idea of fun…" Sybella replied sarcastically. She still didn't exactly know why someone would want to assault a garden utensil, but she supposed anger (which she sensed in the singer's voice) caused people to do strange things.

"Ooh! Colonel Calloway's coming! This should be fascinating!" Phantasma observed.

Sybella and Phantasma both watched the Cadets as the action unfolded.

"Better turn it off, Tug." Miguel warned. "I can see the Colonel coming."

Tug immersed himself in thought for a moment, before shrugging. "Eh, whatever. I don't care what that old bastard says."

Miguel, Grunt, Baxter and Jamal all gasped simultaneously.

"Don't let the colonel hear you say that. Insubordination isn't the Calloway way." Jamal responded.

"You guys aren't tired of that old geezer ordering us around all the time? We're teenagers, we should be able to have some fun once in a while." Tug replied rebelliously.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Tug." Miguel reminded.

Before Tug had a chance to respond, Colonel Calloway got in earshot of the music and began shouting. "Attention!"

All the cadets stood at ease, except Tug who stood in a defiantly slouched position.

"I said attention, Cadet Roper! That means STAND AT ATTENTION!" Colonel Calloway shouted.

Tug sighed and did as he was told, turning off his rap music.

"Cadets, what I have told you about listening to that misogynistic trash?" Calloway scolded.

"You said that you didn't like us listening to it, sir!" Miguel replied, still standing stiffly in position.

"Exactly! The Cadet Code tells us we must remain respectful of civilians at all times! This includes women, right?" Calloway informed.

"SIR YES SIR!" the Cadets all shouted, though Tug's voice was much quieter.

Colonel Calloway glared at Tug. "That was a noticeably more subdued response than normal, Cadet Roper. Anything on your mind you'd like to share with the rest of the group?"

Tug huffed in frustration. "The Cadet Code also says that we're fighting for freedom. Shouldn't this include freedom of being able to listen to what music we want?"

The Colonel had a look of surprise on his face, shocked that one of his cadets would speak so disrespectfully to him.

"As I've said before, Cadet Roper," the colonel grimaced, "I'm not going to forbid you from listening to that music, because I also believe in freedom as a basic human right. However, I STRONGLY recommend that you do not ever listen to that meaningless hate speech that you call "music." Have I made myself clear, Cadet Roper?"

"Yes sir." Tug mumbled.

"What was that, Cadet Roper?"

"SIR YES SIR!" Tug articulated louder.

"Much better. And next time you show me that kind of disrespect, you'll be doing 30 reps of sit-ups. You may listen to that music if you so desire, but only in your quarters far away from where I can hear it. Now, IS THAT CLEAR?" Calloway shouted.

"SIR YES SIR!" Tug repeated.

Phanty continued giggling.

"I've never seen a cadet show the colonel that little respect. I'm shocked he would even consider being that disrespectful in the first place." Phantasma commented.

"Not that I agree with him. But I can certainly understand having a bit of a deviant side at that age. After all, they're all teenagers and just finding out about themselves. I'll admit, I've recently wanted to experience other things that we usually don't experience at Grimwood's. Our teenage years are a time of self-discovery and experimentation. It's completely normal to want to have a bit of fun. It's just a shame that Calloway Military School is just a breeding grounds for testosterone and violence fantasies." Sybella snarked.

Phanty giggled again at Sybella's harsh comment. "Wow, you really don't like them, do you?"

"I really don't." Sybella said in a less harsh, more playful voice, though still serious.

"We're all ready when you are. This should be a howl!" Winnie announced.

Sybella, Winnie, Phantasma and Tanis took one side of the net, while Elsa, Johnny, Tyler and another student named Ben took the other.

"Are you guys ready over there?" Elsa asked politely.

"Ready to cream you? If so, then we are." Winnie harassed.

Elsa hit the ball over the net for the first time, and the game was afoot.

* * *

Sybella's team had nearly won the game, 20-13.

"Matchpoint." Elsa called.

"I think we need a new net, though. This one's looking a bit frayed." Tanis pointed out.

"You're quite right, Tanis." Sybella noticed. "Legs?"

From the bushes, a large spider jumped on the net and began tearing it to shreds. Once the old net had disintegrated, Legs began weaving a new net with many intricate twists and turns within the web.

Once it had finished, Sybella spoke up. "Fangtastic job, Legs."

Just like that, Legs crawled off the new net and crept back into the bushes.

"Matchpoint." Elsa repeated.

The ball was on the side of Winnie's team, and thus it was their turn to serve. With a mighty swipe, Winnie pelted the ball over the net just barely, hitting the ground before anyone could serve it.

A chorus of cheering broke out from Winnie's team.

"We won! We won! In your face Elsa!" Phantasma screamed, before visibly getting a bit embarrassed. "Oops…that was much louder than intended." she laughed.

"What's the next test, coach?" Elsa asked, trying to distract from her team's loss.

"Next test? Uh…" Coach Micucci rummaged through his papers vigorously. "I guess you guys are done."

Sybella presumed that he just couldn't find what the next test was, but nonetheless she was happy to be done with the class for the day. While she enjoyed it, she was ready to move on to her favorite class, Human Studies.

* * *

Sybella had quite possibly never been as excited for a class as she was for her Human Studies class today. Last class, they had learned about makeup, and the vampire princess was very curious as to what today's topic would be.

Mrs. Griffin picked up a piece of chalk at the front of the room, and began writing with the white-colored utensil on the chalkboard. She moved the writing instrument with grace, creating each letter with great elegance. When she had finished writing the phrase, it clearly read "Denial Theory."

Sybella wasn't exactly sure what that was, but it sounded quite interesting.

"Alright class, it's about that time." Mrs. Griffin declared as she glanced at her watch. "Today we will be talking about Denial Theory. Does anyone have an idea of what this is, in terms of human culture?"

No one raised their hands.

"No one?" Mrs. Griffin paused for another brief second, in case any student would chime in at the last minute.

After an ample period of time had passed, Mrs. Griffin explained herself.

"Okay then. Denial Theory is the concept of humans completely denying the existence of the supernatural, to give themselves a false sense of security and comfort in the world of science and logic."

"Wait, what?" Sybella accidentally blurted in surprise. "You mean some people actually don't believe we're even real?"

This was a troubling thought for Sybella. After all, it wasn't exactly a comforting thought that there was an entire group of people out there that didn't even believe you existed.

"I'm afraid so, Sybella." Mrs. Griffin affirmed.

"Hold on, don't humans have like documented proof of us? Like, with all those "ghost hunter" shows?" Sarah commented a bit dryly.

"Well, there are some people who believe the people in these shows make up the supernatural's existence to make money. And of course, there's also the other perspective that there's a logical explanation for everything." Mrs. Griffin explained.

"Are you saying science isn't real, then?" Alexis chimed in.

"No, science is indeed real and can explain a lot. However, human science is nowhere near fully developed, so in defense, humans choose to deny what they can't explain." Mrs. Griffin answered. "Supernatural science is far more advanced."

As Mrs. Griffin continued talking, Sybella let the sobering thought pervade in her head. It certainly minimized your sense of self when someone, or in this case, a lot of someones, didn't even believe that you were in existence.

* * *

 _September 14_

 _It's shocking how fast this month has gone. In just a few days, you will have been living out this change at Grimwood's for nearly three whole weeks._

 _You are continuing to learn about human culture, which is both reassuring and somber. It's fascinating to learn about another culture and expand your mental horizons. However, the pervasive inequality and unfairness that you've also been opened up to is very troubling and is on your mind a lot. It seems just so easy to have an equal society where everyone is happy. If that's true, why does there have to be such bigotry and hatred still in existence? Surely everyone wants to be happy, so why can't we all just team up and make steps towards that?_

Some mornings, rather than writing a complete thought, Sybella sort of trailed off due to both lack of time and shutting down her mind, which in its current state, was very fertile with new ideas.

This was indeed one of those mornings. She was a tiny bit behind schedule from normal, so she decided to just skip right to the getting dressed part in order to stay on track. She could always write more tonight or tomorrow should she feel like it.

Opening up her dresser opened up an immense amount of possibilities for what to wear for the day. The vampire princess felt in a dressy mood, so her eyes gravitated towards a purple top which buttoned up in the front. She picked out some gray dress pants, which complemented the look quite nicely. Still not quite enough, she added a tank top underneath which was a much lighter shade of lavender. It would maybe be a bit too much purple for some, but hey, it was her favorite color after all. In her mind, you could never wear too much purple. Picking up her normal choker off her desk, Sybella fast-walked out of the room as to not be late for class.

* * *

As the vampiress walked into Creative Writing class, she noticed Callie's familiar face. Callie was clad in a top which had patterns of thorned roses on it, complemented with some violet-shaded leggings.

"Hey Callie." Sybella waved.

"What's up, Sybella?" Callie chirped.

"Nothing noteworthy. Are you ready for volleyball practice tonight?" Sybella inquired.

"Definitely. I can't wait until we actually play Calloway!" Callie replied.

"Okay class, today is a work day for your story outlines. Don't forget that they're due at the end of the class period today." Miss Lillard reminded.

"How's your story coming along?" Callie asked her vampire friend.

Sybella shrugged. "Pretty good, I suppose. Coming a bit slow. Inspiration is a lot of work!"

Callie let out a chipper laugh in response. "Yeah. I suppose it's tougher when you're making the story up from scratch. It was pretty easy for me, actually, since my story was something I actually lived."

"It's a bit of a process. I think I should have something to turn in by the end of the day." Sybella guessed.

"You know, I could read over what you have so far. I mean, to let you know what I think." Callie suggested.

Sybella lit up a bit. "That would be perfect!" she said, immediately ducking down to go through her backpack. After a bit of rummaging, she found the outline and handed it to Callie.

"Thanks. Give me a few minutes and I'll get back to you." Callie smiled.

* * *

Anxiously awaiting her friend's response, Sybella tapped her foot on the ground while attempting to think of ideas which would further her story. After about 15 minutes, Callie finally broke the silence.

"Quite interesting!" Callie replied.

Sybella smiled a bit as she continued.

"I like your character development, and your pacing of the story is really smooth. But, I would have liked to see more description of the human world, you know. You just kind of go straight to the action, and forget to actually stop and describe where the character is." Callie critiqued.

"Fair point." Sybella thought a minute. "How do you think the human world should be? Magical? Dark and scary? One of those dystopian universe thingies? I know those are popular in the human books right now."

Callie paused a moment, before finally saying "How do _you_ think the human world should be? Like, what do you imagine it should be like?"

Sybella didn't respond immediately. She had never thought of actually making it what she wanted it to be; she just naturally thought it should be how it is in real-life.

"Me? Oh, I doubt readers care what I think." Sybella negated.

"See though, that's the cool thing about books. It's like art, in a way. You get to describe it however you personally view it. You can use symbolism to make the place however you see it from your worldview. I've always loved when things have double meanings, if you get what I'm saying." Callie explained.

 _She's a genius!_ Sybella thought.

"I never really thought of it that way." Sybella considered. She felt a bit stupid phrasing it that way, but she had always thought of things from an empirical perspective. She didn't really think about the multitude of differences out there. I mean, if you thought about it, everyone has a different way of going through the world, and writing was indeed a great way to express your own worldview.

* * *

Next up was art.

It seemed a bit fitting, honestly, to have that class next. Her and Callie had just been discussing how books and writing were like an art form, and part of her was a bit excited to explore that connection further.

And sure enough, they did indeed explore that connection further.

"Today, we shall discuss the principles of abstract art. Abstract art really is in the eye of the beholder. It's a symbol of whatever the artist intends it to be modeled after." Mr. Welker explained.

Sybella beamed with excitement, though she hoped no one else would notice. She had a tough reputation to maintain, after all!

"And on the subject of thinking abstractly, for the next few minutes, I'd like you all to discuss the following question with the person next to you: What does art mean to you?" Mr. Welker questioned.

"It means 60 extra minutes of homework a day." a student blurted.

Everyone began laughing, including Sybella and Tanis. Mr. Welker simply rolled his eyes at the student's lame attempt at a joke.

"Maybe we could try for something a bit deeper?" Mr. Welker commented.

"Art means true beauty and elegance." Tanis said to Sybella.

"Quite right, Tanis. I'd add on to that by saying it's a form of self-expression." Sybella added.

"True, but wouldn't that make everything art?" Tanis proposed.

"Hmm, I suppose so." Sybella pondered. In a way, everything was art. Certain things were more mundane than others, of course, but pretty much everything we did was a way of expressing ourselves, in a sense.

Sybella continued to consider this interesting question of worldview for the remainder of the class period in her mind, even though she knew she was probably taking Mr. Welker's question far more seriously than any of the other students.

* * *

At last, it was the end of the day and time for dinner.

As per usual, Tanis and Sybella had gone to the library and done their homework together after art class had concluded. This had almost become a ritual now for the two girl ghouls, and they bonded significantly over it, whether it was studying, doing an assignment together, or just talking with one another. After they had concluded their studying for the day, the two girls began walking to the dining room together.

"What's Miss Grimwood making us tonight?" Tanis asked.

"Don't you remember, Tanis? Tonight's the fall harvest." Sybella reminded.

Admittedly, Sybella had been so wrapped up in coursework that she had nearly forgotten about the special occasion herself. Every September, Miss Grimwood harvested all the crops just as the seasons were about to change, and made a full meal out of them. It was always quite a filling meal, and the girls' looked forward to the special occasion every single year. This year would be different however, as they would have two additional guests joining them. Both Sarah and Callie would be staying at school late tonight for volleyball practice later in the evening, and would be enjoying their first fall harvest dinner.

"Dinner is served!" Miss Grimwood shouted, as Oliver the octopus butler rang his dinner gong from afar.

Sybella and Tanis quickly shuffled into the dining room to see what Miss Grimwood had harvested this year. To their delight, they saw a cornucopia's worth of veggies and fruits. Rotten apples, squishy squash, molding pumpkins, overripe watermelon, brown carrots and fresh blood oranges were just a few of the items that could be seen in this massive display of scrumptiousness.

Sybella grabbed a bit of everything, and immediately began sucking the juice out of the oranges until it was nothing but a flimsy peel.

Sarah and Callie quickly entered the room after the rest of the girls began chowing down.

"Wow, Miss Grimwood!" Sarah said, a bit shocked by the massive amount of food in front of her.

"You didn't have to go to this much trouble just for us." Callie added.

"It's no trouble at all, girls. We have our fall harvest around this time every year. There's more than enough here for all of us." Miss Grimwood assured.

The remainder of the girls began serving themselves from each of the numerous platters, while Sybella continued to nibble at the juicy nectar of the apples.

"So. How was everyone's day?" Callie chirped.

Elsa was the first to answer "Quite good, Callie. We've begun the mad science unit in my Science class. I'm working on creating life!"

"It's ALIVE!" Phantasma joked, playing off of the classic Frankenstein film made by humans, which they had all watched together on one of the school's movie marathon nights. Her joke got a hearty helping of laughs in return.

"Mine was good too!" Winnie butted in. "We've started talking about mind control in my Psychology class."

"Clearly old Revolta needed to take that course." Phantasma joked, taking a bit of a dark turn down memory lane. "She couldn't control our minds if we said we would listen to her willingly."

"We're learning about the ancient Egyptian empire in my History class, so that's always fun." Tanis added meekly.

"How about yours, Phanty? You seem to have a lot to say about everyone else's day." Sarah invited in a bit of catty voice.

"It was the worst day of literally my entire life. I don't know how I shall ever go on living!" pronounced Phanty dramatically.

"I take it Drama class was good then?" Sybella snickered.

"Yes, it was quite good." Phanty giggled.

"My day was great too." Sybella finally answered. "Tanis and I talked about what the meaning of art is."

"I see you're applying what we talked about in Creative Writing, then." Callie smiled, to which Sybella blushed a bit.

Noticing she was the only one who hadn't revealed a detail about her day, Miss Grimwood invited Sarah to begin talking.

"How was your day, Sarah?"

"Really good, thanks for asking." Sarah responded. "I guess the most interesting thing I did was the Human Studies homework from last night."

"It was indeed quite an interesting article we were assigned, wasn't it?" Sybella commented.

"Yeah! I just still can't believe that some humans don't believe in us." Sarah shook her head.

The rest of the girl ghouls nearly spit out their food when they heard Sarah's comment.

"Wait, they don't believe in us?" Elsa asked in awe.

"What do you mean?" Winnie inquired.

"So, we're learning about this thing called Denial Theory, where like humans totally deny that monsters even exist." Sarah revealed.

"How is that even possible? I mean, we all know that we're real." Tanis said adorably.

"The article was just talking about how hard it is for humans to come to term with the fact that monsters exist. It would be like asking them to explain the unexplainable, in a sense." Sarah elaborated.

"That is indeed very fascinating!" Miss Grimwood commented. "I'm so glad we added on Mrs. Griffin as our Human Studies instructor."

"I still don't get it." Phanty replied in a confused tone. "I mean, we know humans are real. How can they not know an entire species is real?"

"That, my dear Phanty, is the question we are all asking." Miss Grimwood concluded.

* * *

After a hearty conversation and some delicious food, everyone was stuffed to their limit. While Elsa chewed on her final watermelon rind, the rest of the girls began thinking about what was next: volleyball practice.

"Thank you for an amazing meal, Miss Grimwood." Callie beamed. "It was absolutely _scrumptious._ "

"I'm so glad, Callie. That should keep you girls going for the duration of your practice." Miss Grimwood followed.

The purple-clad vampire led the way out to the volleyball courts. Following close behind was Callie, who donned a blue tank top and shorts. The remainder of the girls quickly caught up to the two front-runners, just as they arrived on the court.

"You want to do the same thing we did in gym yesterday?" Winnie called, her voice muffled in the wind.

"Sure!" Tanis replied cheerfully.

"May as well." Elsa shrugged.

Callie and Sarah gave the five core ghouls a bit of a confused look, to which Sybella replied "We just each took sides and did a practice game with each other."

Callie and Sarah nodded, until the latter realized that there was an uneven number of players.

"There's seven of us? We can't all be on a team without one having an unfair advantage."

"I can sit this one out." Elsa offered.

"Fangs a lot for volunteering." Sybella cooed, her fangs bared in a playful fashion. "So who wants to be with who?"

"I can be with Sybella and Tanis." Callie offered. "Winnie, Phanty and Sarah can be on the other team. Sound good?"

Callie's request was met with a nod.

Callie had the first serve. With a graceful swish of her long reddish hair, she served the ball over the net off to an angle, momentarily confusing the other team, ultimately causing them to miss the ball.

"Nice serve, Callie! Clearly you've been practicing." Winnie complimented.

Callie just shrugged in response. "Only with you guys."

"Well, either way, fangtastic job there. We'll beat those Calloway Cadets for sure with that kind of action." Sybella commented.

* * *

Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Barren Bog, a familiar vine began to twitch once again.

"Is that you, Creeper?" Revolta annunciated.

"Y-y-yes, Revolta." it replied. "I still feel so weak. I feel like I can barely move!"

"Yes, Creeper. As do I." Revolta affirmed. "But soon, we shall regain our strength and take our revenge on the ones that did this to us."

"You mean…?" the vine was interrupted by a loud cackle.

"Yes, indeed! The Witch of the Web shall finally invoke the vengeance she has been planning for nearly half a decade. The Grimwood Girls shall be no more!"

A loud, maniacal cackling could be heard by all creatures prowling throughout the Barren Bog.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

So sorry for a bit of a wait on this chapter. I've been focusing on my other fanfic, Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake, a bit more lately and unfortunately that's meant that I haven't had as much time to write this chapter. Glad I was able to get it published in time for Halloween, though! Happy Halloween to all of you, btw!

Not really a lot of references in this one, other than Sybella's eyes turning green while swimming. This is a reference to an animation glitch in the Ghoul School film, where her eyes accidentally do turn green. There's no significance to it in the movie, but I thought making it a medical condition would be a fun little way to explain it.

As a side note, the scene with Colonel Calloway yelling at the Cadets for listening to rap music was a response to a criticism from a reader/friend. The criticism was that they thought rap (which the Cadets also listen to in chapter 1) would be banned in a military school. I thought this was a nice way of explaining it, so hopefully you all enjoyed the scene and think it explains things better.

Oh, and I think my new favorite verb which I used in this chapter is "fwooped" lol. It's just such a fun word to use!


	4. A Very Bat Day

_September 22_

 _The world is good._

 _In the past few weeks, you've become a lot closer with your current friends. You've also gained new friendships, which is both a fun and scary process. You know you've been sheltered the majority of your life. Because of this, while a new friendship can seem exciting, excitement can turn into a bit of nervousness and fear. Maintaining new relationships can be exhausting and overwhelming, as you don't necessarily know what to expect from the other people._ _Regardless though, you try to remain positive and remember who you are. While relationships are important, the number one priority in life is to take care of yourself and make sure you're happy._

Setting her journal and purple-inked pen down, Sybella put her thoughts to the side for the moment, and decided to figure this out at a later point.

This morning, Sybella felt in a very expressive mood. Because of this, she decided to deviate from searching through her usual dresser drawer and looked through her seldom-opened closet. There were a lot of old outfits in there that didn't fit her anymore, but there were still some which she simply didn't wear very often (and thus were "banished" to the closet). It was quite different from her usual style, but she ended up choosing a top which was almost a wrap of sorts, which could be tied at the back. The top was red with a wide variety of prints covering the front and back of it.

After finding a matching red tank top and putting it on, Sybella tied the wrap-top around herself decided to complement it with a pair of black pants. She didn't need to be overly fancy after all, as she would just be going to health class, and lord knows that nothing about that class was even remotely delicate.

Quickly shuffling down the stairs, Sybella walked down to get her breakfast before a full day of classes. Unfortunately, the garden fruit had all been harvested, so she couldn't exactly go about her normal routine. The past few days, she had been going to the dining hall instead and finding something to munch on there.

The dining hall was a large delicacy, with numerous tables and study areas all around. There were fancy tables with lacy tablecloths, but also more mundane tables that could be used should a student need to study or do homework whilst eating. The selection of breakfast food was enormous, and combined the cultures of both humans and monsters (though it's worth noting that they were combined a lot, anyways). There were human foods such as apples, oranges, and bananas, but also more monster-friendly options such as cereal with blood, pancakes with blood syrup, rat patties (the monster equivalent of what you humans would call "sausage patties"), and of course vulture eggs prepared in a variety of different ways.

Sybella noticed Tanis over already getting a banana and vulture eggs.

"Hey, Tanis!" Sybella waved.

"Oh, Sybella! How did you sleep?" Tanis replied.

"Fangtastic. Plenty of bat dreams!" she smiled.

Sybella noticed Matches sitting over in the corner, enjoying a dish of his own, which appeared to have vulture eggs in it. Occasionally, Miss Grimwood would feed him scraps from the dining hall that were old or unusable. Matches appeared to be thoroughly enjoying his breakfast.

"We better get to class before we're late." Tanis noticed as she inspected the nearby grandfather clock, on the far left wall of the dining hall. The clock had decorative gargoyles mounted on either side of it, and also had several fake hanging bats dangling around it. This was around that time that Miss Grimwood decorated the building for Halloween. Sybella figured she must have wanted an early start on it, as with the new additions in the building, it was sure to be a far bigger task than normal. Maybe she would offer to help Miss Grimwood this weekend if she had some spare time.

"Yeah, give me just a second to grab my breakfast." Sybella said, scooping a rat patty and some bloody cereal into her to-go tray. Mr. Micucci wasn't exactly the most formal teacher, so the vampire princess doubted that he would mind if the girls brought their breakfast into the classroom.

* * *

Mr. Micucci was dressed in his typical tracksuit and sweatpants. Micucci made a motion to the class to alert them that it was almost time to begin.

"Alright, are you kids ready to learn about your bodies?" Coach Micucci snorted.

"I've learned enough already." Sybella muttered under her breath, which Phantasma must have heard since she began giggling a bit.

"Last time, we talked about the male anatomy. So, this time, we're gonna talk about the female anatomy." Micucci revealed. "Now, this can get a bit complicated, so I recommend that you all take notes...or don't, I don't really care to be honest. I ain't got the energy to write a test. So, who's heard of the menstrual cycle?"

"Oh yeah! Isn't that the cool vehicle that bikers ride?" Phantasma inquired.

"No, that's a _motor_ cycle." Elsa corrected.

"Menstrual. Isn't that a type of bird?" Tanis innocently asked.

"That's a _kestrel_." Winnie pointed out.

"A menstrual cycle is a normal part of a woman's body. Now I'd like you to turn to page 83 in your health textbooks." Micucci said.

"I don't think this will be so bad, guys. Not like last time." Tanis assured. "It's just...OH MY GOD WHAT IS ALL THAT BLOOD?"

"Yeah, I probably shoulda warned you about that." Micucci shrugged. "For one week out of every month, a woman's body simulates the birth cycle by bleeding out of her, well ya know. That part that all you dames have."

"But...why is it bleeding? When does it stop?" Tanis began breaking down in tears.

"Aww. It's okay, sweetheart." Coach Micucci came over to Tanis and gave her a rough pat on the back, which wasn't really all that comforting.

"You have to wear something called a tampon to keep the blood from soaking through your clothes. Feels a bit strange at first, but it's fine once you get used to it." Sybella comforted.

"Sybella...you mean...you have to wear them too?! You poor thing! Why would anyone create a body like this?" Tanis sobbed.

"Uhh...I know I'm the teacher here, but I don't have the skills to comfort children. Let's just move on. It'll be alright, sunshine." Coach Micucci gave Tanis another pat on the back, tears still streaming down her face.

"You'll never have to worry about getting your period. Neither will Elsa or Phantasma. Or Winnie, technically." Sybella said, alluding to Winnie's "time of the moon" as representing her period.

"Okay, let's immerse ourselves into the vagina." Coach Micucci announced, before realizing the context of what he actually said. "No, I didn't mean it that way!"

Most of the kids laughed, besides the still teary-eyed Tanis and Sybella, who looked thoroughly unamused with Micucci's immature joke.

"Now, let's start out simple this time. What are some words for vagina that you know?" Micucci asked the students.

"Uh...vagina?" commented a male brown-haired werewolf towards the back.

"I think we're lookin' to go a bit deeper here." Micucci rolled his eyes.

The class was all nervous to speak up, even though they obviously knew some words.

"Clit-oris?" Phantasma awkwardly pronounced, never hearing it said aloud before.

"Yeah! That's a part of it." Micucci applauded. "What else?"

"Uh...vagina?" the same male brown-haired werewolf said again.

"You already said that!" Micucci's voice raised in frustration. "C'mon guys, I know you've heard of some words."

Finally, someone said the word that everyone was likely thinking.

"Pussy." an unidentified voice towards the very back of the room shouted out.

"Yep. What else?"

"Pee-pee compartment?" a vampire student named Jordan commented.

"Uh...yeah...I've heard it called that." Mr. Micucci looked around with shifty eyes. "So, there's these parts on the top of women's chests too. What are some...uh...names you've heard those called?"

Mr. Micucci seemed unsure of how to best phrase it. After all, being delicate wasn't his specialty.

"Uh...vagina?" the same student asked again.

"No! Someone else. Please, anyone else." Coach Micucci pleaded.

"Breads?" Tanis asked innocently.

"No, but at least you were close, honey." Micucci reassured. "It's actually _breasts_. A minor difference, but an important one. Anything else?"

The same student raised his hand again slightly.

"Damn it, if you're just gonna say vagina again, you might as well just put your hand down!" Mr. Miccuci snarled.

"Uh, sorry coach." the brown-haired student put his hand down with a regretful look on his face.

"Boobs?" Winnie blurted.

"Finally, a legitimate one." Mr. Micucci breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah. So what they do is they make milk if dames have babies."

"Is it enough to fill a 1 gallon jug?" a student in the back blurted.

"Uhh..I uhh...don't know." Coach Micucci paused. "I'm just the teacher here, what do you want from me?"

Sybella rolled her eyes in disgust. She could probably find out more about her body from asking her female peers than she ever would in this class. Mr. Micucci was clearly pretty clueless about the female anatomy. Very little of this information was new to her. Surely, her next class, Human Studies, would bring her more beneficial knowledge than this mindless drivel.

"Coach! Coach! I've got a question about breasts." The same 'vagina'-commenting student urgently waved his hand in the air.

"Yeah. What is it, Eric?"

Eric immediately began giggling before he was even able to get his entire question out.

"Can you...uh...touch 'em?"

Coach Micucci immediately looked annoyed.

"No, there's an invisible wall around 'em that doesn't allow anyone to come within five feet. Idiot, of course you can touch 'em!" Micucci scoffed.

Eric began giggling again at Micucci's frustration.

"Can you...uh...squeeze 'em?" he asked, before breaking out into a giggling fit.

"Well, I'm finished." Micucci threw his hands up in the air in annoyance. "Class dismissed!"

As Micucci stormed out of the classroom, Sybella began gathering her belongings and placing them in her backpack. Despite the immaturity of Micucci walking out in the middle of a class, she actually didn't blame him.

Some people apparently were just that immature.

* * *

Sybella was glad that Human Studies was on the same day as Health. Even without students like Eric, it was hard enough sitting through Micucci's terrible explanations about the body.

"Alright class, today we're going to continue our unit on Denial Theory." Mrs. Griffin announced. "Before I explain more, does anyone have an idea on why humans are so obsessed with movies and books about witchcraft and magic, even if they don't believe in it?"

Sarah was the first to speak up.

"Well, a lot of humans like escapism, and fantasy gives them a chance to do that...or at least, what they believe is fantasy. Calling the whole genre 'fantasy' is sort of like confirmation bias, almost."

"Excellent, Sarah! Yes, humans like to explore the world of magic within the safe confines of their own home. Exploring it through the lens of 'fantasy' makes it seem less scary, because they don't have to believe it's real." Mrs. Griffin explained.

It was a bit saddening for Sybella to learn about this, even if it was interesting. Having a whole group of millions of people not believe in you was certainly a bit minimizing of one's identity, to say the least.

"But why can't just go up to humans and prove that we're real?" Sybella blurted, to her immediate embarrassment. She probably shouldn't have phrased it so awkwardly, but she was worked up about the idea of this being real. That millions of humans didn't even believe she was real.

"We can't control that, Sybella. We could walk up in front of humans and fly in the air holding a huge sign saying 'Look at me, I'm real,' and there would still be humans who don't believe in existence. When you're in a culture that works their worldview around the existence of a very particular area of science and logic, you can't just prove the existence of the supernatural that easily. If we could, ghouls and monsters would have done it a long time ago." Mrs. Griffin elaborated.

"I guess, yeah." Sybella sighed. She wanted to ask Mrs. Griffin the exact right question, that would make everything feel good again, but she didn't know how to do that. The words just didn't come.

She hoped she wasn't overreacting to this, but it was scary to think that there were _so_ many people out there that thought you were nothing more than a fantasy. Maybe the weekend would bring some answers.

* * *

Miss Grimwood had been so busy lately, that she wasn't even coming to eat dinner with the rest of the ghouls after their classes had finished. Sybella thought this was odd, given the recent program which had been started at Grimwood's. Previously, it was only permitted to eat dinner if you lived at the school. However, now, if one had extra school activities or simply wanted to stay and socialize, Miss Grimwood allowed it, even if they weren't staying overnight.

She would have expected Miss Grimwood to come and grace the new students with her presence, like they normally did back when the school just consisted of the five of them. But alas, she supposed things couldn't stay the same forever.

Tonight, however, Callie and Sarah were staying over for dinner, as they had volleyball practice tonight for the big game in October.

"Who makes this food?" Callie asked, slurping up a large beetleball from her spaghetti. The blood red sauce lingered on her lips for a moment, until she quickly licked it off to avoid any drippage. "It's absolutely delicious!"

"I heard it's the Swedish Chef." Sarah said.

Everyone just sat there in silence, looking at Sarah.

"The Swedish Chef? You know, from The Muppets? He's a crazy nonsensical Muppet-like monster, this is a monster school? Nobody's getting this reference?" Sarah asked.

"None of us have lived in the human world like you have, Sarah." Elsa replied matter-of-factly.

'What's it like living with humans?" Sybella immediately blurted out.

"Uh, it's interesting." Sarah replied vaguely, looking a bit consumed with thought at the moment.

"What do you mean, though? Do they just not see you? They think you're invisible?" Sybella inquired.

"No, they see me. It's just, I can't really tell anybody who I am in the human world. They'd either freak out or just flat out not believe me." Sarah said, a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Oh...um…" Sybella wasn't really sure how to continue.

"I mean, it's not horrible. You get used to it." Sarah assured. "But it's not like I don't wish things were different sometimes."

This was probably the most vulnerable and open that Sybella had ever seen Sarah.

"Sounds like that would really suck." Winnie sympathized. "So you don't tell ANYONE that you're a witch?"

"No one that isn't also a witch, no." Sarah stated frankly. "It's not as big of a deal as you guys make it seem, though. You guys don't tell everyone every single thing about your lives, right?"

Sybella, Winnie, Phantasma, Elsa, Tanis and Callie all shook their heads.

"Yeah. So, this is just like another thing I don't tell anyone." Sarah stated, as if it were obvious.

Sarah's comments made the uneasy vampiress feel a tiny bit relieved. It was indeed distressing that humans didn't believe in the supernatural, but she supposed it was okay if she didn't have all the answers immediately.

At that moment, Miss Grimwood walked into the dining room, looking like she was in a hurry.

"Hi girls. I'm quite sorry to be late, but I'm afraid the Ghoul Board has been a bit of a bear with all the paperwork." Miss Grimwood apologized.

"It's alright, Miss G." Elsa responded.

"I'm afraid I have to get a bit more work done this evening, but Coach Micucci will be down shortly to help lead volleyball practice." Miss Grimwood informed.

 _Oh no._ Sybella thought. She wasn't sure if she could take any more of Micucci's antics today.

"He'll meet you out by the volleyball court, whenever you're finished with dinner." Miss Grimwood continued.

The girls quickly finished what little was left of their dinner, as they kept talking about the mysterious human world.

* * *

As Miss Grimwood had promised, Coach Micucci was waiting over to the side of the volleyball net.

"Alright kids, let's get started." Micucci said in a less-than-enthused voice. "What do you call a serve that's done over the head?"

"Uh...vagina?" Phantasma asked in a jokingly uncertain voice.

"Now don't start that again! This isn't health class!" Mr. Micucci snapped.

"It's overhand, right, Mr. Micucci?" Tanis questioned.

"I don't know, that's why I'm askin' you guys what it's called." Mr. Micucci shrugged. "Now, let's work on some strategies for during the big game."

"Oh yeah, we should work on some strategies to distract those Cadets!" Winnie suggested.

"Oh, I think I've got a good one for that. Sarah, Sybella, Callie and Tanis, you get on one side of the net. Elsa, Winnie, and Phantasma, you get on the other." Coach Micucci instructed.

"Now, Sarah, run over to the other side of the net, and say 'watch out!' Then, when Elsa's lookin' the other way, shove her over and run! That'll distract her." Micucci concocted.

"What? That's a horrible strategy." Sarah raised an eyebrow. "The only thing that's going to do is get you fired."

"Yeah, I gotta say, I don't know much about dame stuff like volleyball and...um...I don't know...washing your hands." Micucci admitted.

"Aww, I'm sorry Coach." Tanis sympathized. "Anything we can do to help?"

"Thanks sweetheart. I mean, what strategies do you guys usually use? How do ya win?" Micucci inquired.

"Well, Sybella usually does the Bat Spike." Winnie pointed out.

"Isn't that, uh, copyrighted or somethin'?" Mr. Micucci asked.

"No." Sybella shrugged in confusion.

"It's another human reference." Sarah butted in, seeming a bit exasperated having to do so. "There's this superhero named Batman, whose trademark is to have gadgets named after bats."

Not knowing how else to respond, Sybella explained "The Bat Spike is just when I turn into a bat and fly right above the net, and hit the ball with my wing."

"Okay, good, good." Micucci said, though he didn't seem to grasp any of what Sybella just said. He was only a human, after all. "What've you got, Phantasma? The Spirit Serve or somethin'?"

Phanty giggled at Mr. Micucci's silly made-up volleyball move.

"No. Nothing like that."

"Well, can you just go through the net and scare the shit out of the Cadets or somethin'?" Coach Micucci suggested.

"No!" Phanty continued giggling.

"Well, I tried." Coach Micucci began walking away.

"Where are you going, Coach?" Elsa inquired.

"I've got somethin' that requires my more immediate attention. This dessert burrito." Coach Micucci said, as he pulled the bagged confection out of his pocket. He rapidly removed the bag before taking a bite, chocolate syrup spraying out everywhere.

Sybella let out an upset huff.

"Of all people to hire, Miss Grimwood had to find this imbecile?" Sybella quietly said within a safe distance from Coach Micucci, letting out a big sigh.

"Don't worry about it, 'Bella." Winnie reassured. "We'll still win, despite Micucci."

Sybella took a glance back over at the clownish coach, to see the horrifying sight of his entire face covered in gooey chocolate.

"Uh...I think me and this here burrito are gonna need a moment alone." Micucci sheepishly grinned.

* * *

A mysterious figure began to wander about in the dark. No one was around to see it, except for the creeping vine which followed this ghostly shadow.

"Let us gaze upon the Venus Spy-Traps." the very masculine female's voice boomed. "It has been an eternity since they have seen their proper use."

With a wave of her magic wand, two medium-sized plants sprouted up out of the ground. Each plant had a large eye attached to the top of it.

"But Revolta, you can't use the Venus Spy-Traps until you find the Master Eye. It was in your destroyed lair!" the Grim Creeper reminded.

"Ah, curses!" Revolta shouted. "Then we will simply have to recover the Master Eye, so we can begin spying on those girl ghouls whilst I plan my revenge!"

Revolta's eyes turned bright red, which showed the Creeper just how determined she was to find it. Revolta was clearly bound and determined to exact her revenge on those girl ghouls once and for all.

* * *

 _September 23_

 _Friday._

 _What to say._

 _It wasn't exactly a good day yesterday. Everything inhumanly possible was going wrong; from a clueless volleyball coach, to a ridiculous health class, to humans not believing in monsters._

 _You usually feel so empowered and in control, but these developments just make me feel…_

 _Helpless._

 _How the hell are you supposed to be yourself when everything around you is going wrong?_

Sybella let herself trail off, knowing she wasn't in the best of moods.

Some days, she could just write in her journal for hours, but today wasn't that day. She just wanted to rant, which probably wasn't the most mature thing to do. She sometimes went back and reread entries she had written a few weeks or even a few months ago, and she certainly didn't want to be embarrassed reading her own mindless angry drivel, even if she was the only one reading it.

Quite frankly, she just wanted to pout.

This morning, Sybella pulled out a bat-print top, jeans and an embroidered jacket with stripes on it. She also went in her closet, to pull out a pair of black boots with bat-shaped zippers.

Once her purple socks were fully adjusted on her feet, Sybella quickly shoved the boots on her feet, zipping them up precariously before she walked downstairs.

"Hi Sybella!" a voice chirped behind her just as she was at the top of the staircase. Sybella nearly jumped five feet, not expecting Tanis to be right behind her.

"Hey." Sybella replied in a monotone voice, causing Tanis to become concerned.

"Oh...everything alright?"

"It's fine, Tanis. I'm just a little moody is all." Sybella sighed.

"Ok...well, hope you feel better." Tanis said cheerfully, as she walked down the stairs with enthusiasm.

Poor sweet Tanis. She certainly didn't deserve Sybella's poor treatment, but she rationalized it by arguing that she was cranky, and everyone had their bad days.

* * *

Sybella walked into her Creative Writing class, not really in the mood to talk even though she knew Callie would be.

Luckily for her, Callie wasn't there yet. Even though she felt bad about thinking it, she was glad Callie wasn't there. It gave Sybella some much needed alone time.

"Okay class, I've read your story outlines. Everyone's story was most excellent to read. I'll give your feedback to you individually after class." Miss Lillard informed. "Now, today we're going to talk about what we look for in good books. What are some things that characterize good books for you?"

"I like looking at the pictures." a werewolf said in a dopey-sounding voice.

"Umm, Tom, we're talking about _adult_ literature here, not picture books for young children." Miss Lillard explained gently.

"Ah darn it. Guess I'm gonna have to start over with my outline then." Tom tossed his crumpled up outline on the floor, which from what Sybella could see, was all poorly made drawings.

"Compelling character development." Sybella suggested.

"Ah yes, that's a great one." Miss Lillard applauded. "We need to have good character development to get a true sense of who each of the characters are, especially in relation to others."

At that moment, Callie fast-walked in, looking out of breath.

"Sorry I'm late, Miss Lillard. My father's car wouldn't start."

"No problem." Miss Lillard reassured. "We were just talking about what we look for in good books."

"Oh, I always like strong, empowered characters." Callie offered. "It makes me feel connected to them on a more personal level."

Sybella raised an eyebrow in curiosity. That was actually a very good idea Callie had; in fact, it related to what she was going through a little bit. The vampiress didn't exactly feel strong and empowered at the moment, so she was interested in how Miss Lillard would respond to this comment.

"Yes, confidence has a way of rubbing off, doesn't it?" Miss Lillard smiled. "Seeing a character that's truly empowered, even through all the conflict in the story that's beyond their control, is always refreshing. Great point, Miss Evanson."

Callie shaped her mouth into a smile, mirroring Miss Lillard's. In fact, Sybella couldn't help smiling a little bit as well. It was clear that the universe was trying to send Sybella a message about empowerment and confidence, she just wasn't sure what it all meant yet.

* * *

It was time for art class, at last.

Sybella felt a little nervous going to class today, however, as she felt bad about snubbing Tanis earlier. She couldn't go back and change it now, and she just wished she wasn't so moody to her effervescently cheerful friend this morning. What was a girl to do?

"H-h-hi Sybella." Tanis stuttered.

 _Oh no._ Sybella thought.

It was so sad and adorable at the same time.

"I can leave you alone today if you need space." Tanis said.

"Oh, no, honey." Sybella gave her mummy friend a big hug. "It's okay. I'm sorry I was so cranky earlier."

"It's okay!" Tanis's previously nervous face turned into a smile again.

As they entered the classroom, a sea of their classmates' faces greeted their eyes. It appeared class was about to start. Sybella and Tanis found their seats next to each other just as Mr. Welker was about to begin class.

"Hello class." Mr. Welker greeted.

"Go suck a lemon!" a masculine voice in the back of the classroom shouted.

"Excuse me, young man?" Mr. Welker's jaw dropped in shock.

"Oh...I'm...uh...sorry." the owner of the voice stuttered. It was a small, meek looking blonde-furred werewolf. "I was talking to my friend over here."

He pointed at a disgruntled male mummy with his arms crossed.

"Well, if we're quite done with the theatrics, then class shall begin." Mr. Welker replied in a very annoyed voice.

 _Geez,_ Sybella thought, _what was with all the outbursts lately?_

Though she knew it sounded quite goody-two-shoes, the vampire princess didn't understand some people's propensity to screw around instead of learning important information.

"Today is a work day on your group projects, given they are due at the end of the period." Mr. Welker informed. "Please find your partner and begin working."

Sybella, of course, was working with her friend Tanis. They were working with abstract art, which was admittedly a bit difficult in a group given each person wanted it to go a different direction.

"What exactly is this piece of art saying?" Mr. Welker said, as he walked over to Sybella and Tanis's piece. It was just a swirl of purple, yellow and green, and not really a clear representation of anything. One could say that it was a very abstract form of abstract art.

"Uh, we don't exactly know, sir." Tanis admitted.

"We're having a bit of issue figuring out which direction to take it. Both of us want different things." Sybella further elaborated.

"What I see here is chaos, a lack of control. Neither of you can control what's going on in this painting, because you both are stuck in the fact that there is another person that has control instead of you." Mr. Welker observed.

There was that same concept again. Control. Why was this coming up so much?

"What's the point if you can't control what happens? It's just going to be chaos, like you said." Sybella asked.

"Ah, but neither of you seem to realize that you each have _some_ control. You could each paint half of the paper, and combine your ideas together." Mr. Welker suggested.

"But won't it just be a big mess then?" Tanis rebutted.

"Tanis, from my 50 years as an art teacher, I've learned that art is a lot like life." Mr. Welker began. "You can't really control much in life, except your own bodies and actions. But that's okay. You just have to make _yourself_ feel empowered and be confident in who you are. Because humans are the most complex, yet best forms of art there are."

 _How insightful_. Sybella thought. It gave her some hope that Miss Grimwood hired an intelligent man like Mr. Welker, even though on the other hand, she hired a moron like Coach Micucci.

* * *

And with that, Sybella and Tanis finished their art project, starting over as Mr. Welker had suggested and each taking up one half of the paper. Not quite in the way Mr. Welker had intended, however.

"Alright class, please turn in your projects to me before you leave the classroom today." Mr. Welker instructed, as he walked over to Tanis and Sybella's project first.

"Wow...this is unexpected." Mr. Welker said, looking awestruck by what he was viewing.

The two girls' joint collaboration involved lots of various abstract swirls and shapes on the outer fourths of the paper, of all different colors. The remaining middle half of the paper was consumed by a woman's face, each eye gazing in a different direction.

"It was inspired by you, Mr. Welker." Tanis smiled.

"You said we can't control the things around us, so we made a visual representation of that." Sybella explained. "The girl in the center remains the only clear thing, while there's chaos all around her that she can't control."

"This was more than I ever expected." Mr. Welker admitted. "I'm so glad my lesson helped you."

"Of course. I think I understand what you were saying before, about not being able to control the things around you. But if you stay confident in yourself, that's the best control you can have." Sybella processed.

Mr. Welker simply smiled and nodded in agreement. "Exemplary work, girls. A+!"

Sybella wasn't sure if she'd ever be the same after this lesson, at least not completely. She finally was beginning to realize the importance of being confident in oneself, and not becoming overly reliant on others' for your own happiness. While there are some collaborations and power balances which may happen in life, like Tanis and her decision to place the woman in the center of the artwork, you can never count on it.

You have to be happy with who you are as a person.

* * *

"Drat! It's just not here!" The voice of the Grim Creeper called out into the misty autumn night, as the dastardly duo searched for Revolta's Eye in the rubble of her old lair.

Revolta ignored the Creeper's hasty resignation to the task at hand, and kept digging.

Though Revolta's face remained relatively straight throughout her process of searching what little ash was left of the lair, it suddenly shifted into a smirk.

As fast as the evil smirk registered on Revolta's face, that smirk turned into a full-on cackle.

"Creeper! I have found it!" Revolta announced. "Now, let's see what those girl ghouls are up to…"

Revolta gazed through the eye, to see quite a surprise. It appeared to be not just the five ghouls, but an entire classroom full of monsters.

"What? Why are there so many students?" Revolta reacted in disgust.

"What ever shall we do, Revolta?" the Grim Creeper prompted.

"Oh." Revolta paused for a moment. "I guess that just means we'll have to destroy them all."

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Hope you've enjoyed this chapter! I always make these author's notes too long anyway, so I'll try to keep this one short.

Not too much in the reference department this time, other than Mr. Welker saying he had worked as an art teacher for 50 years is a reference to how long Frank Welker has been voicing Fred. For those of you reading this from your holographic smartphones in 2075, this chapter was written in 2019, which is the 50th anniversary of the Scooby-Doo franchise.

As always, reviews, favorites and follows are very much appreciated!


	5. A Real Howl

_Thursday, September 29_

 _Five weeks. It's been a full five weeks. I can't believe how fast the time's gone…_

There were some days that Sybella could sit and write in her journal for hours, and others that she couldn't clump two words together. Today was one of those scatterbrained, ungrammatical days, and that was okay, she supposed.

And why should she be focused? It was Fall Harvest Break this weekend, after all!

Before Grimwood's became the bigger institution that it is now, they rarely ever had breaks. This is why it excited Sybella so much to have actual time off from school. All classes were cancelled Monday and Tuesday, and were set to resume on Wednesday morning.

Yet again though, the original five monsters were a bit singled out from the rest. While the rest of the students just stayed home for the break and enjoyed a lazy day with their families, Grimwood's was home during the school year for her, Winnie, Phantasma, Tanis and Elsa.

But you'd better believe Ms. Grimwood had that covered!

The sweet, kind-hearted lady that Ms. Grimwood was, she had planned a little excursion into the Barren Bog, open to all students of course if they so wished to stay on campus during the break. No one besides the five of them opted to, however.

But that was Friday night. She still had a full two days of classes to get through! Beginning with, ugh, Health class. What could that idiot Micucci possibly have left to teach her about her body?

* * *

"Abusive relationships!" Micucci slammed a health textbook down on the table. "That's what we're talkin' about today!"

"But...why would anybody be abusive towards their partner if they were in love?" Tanis whispered.

"Oh honey." Sybella sighed at Tanis's adorableness.

"Now, we're gonna play a little game of multiple choice!" Micucci explained. "Now, let's say your dame is pesterin' ya for a new piece of jewelry."

"What kind of jewelry?" Elsa inquired.

"I don't know, what do you dames like? Mood rings or somethin'?"

"Maybe a choker with a ruby attached?" Sybella suggested, thinking of a black one in particular that she owned which had a ruby bat on it.

"Sure, why not. Now, your lady asks ya for a new choker with a jewel, right? I'm gonna write some possible things you could say back to her up on the board, and you guys have to pick the right one. Whoever picks the most correct responses gets an extra Reddit point." Micucci instructed.

"Uh, sir? You mean an extra _credit_ point?" Elsa asked for clarification.

"Eh, sure. In a few years, social media's gonna take over the world and getting a certain number of likes'll probably make ya pass your class or not, so it doesn't matter. Now let's get started!"

The class patiently waited as Micucci wrote the four responses up on the board. As expected, some of the answers were ridiculous, and quite frankly, somewhat inappropriate.

"Option A. Ya already got enough jewels, ya sleazy skank! B. I'll show you a choker!" Micucci read, as he shook his fist in anger. "C. I don't really think we can afford more jewelry. D. Another jewel? I'll kick you in the jewels, ya hussy!"

"This is so easy!" Phantasma grinned mischievously. "It's clearly B."

Micucci made a buzzer noise. "Wrong-o! Anybody else?"

"She's kidding." Sybella rolled her eyes. "It's C, even an imbecile could see that."

"I thought it was A." a male werewolf near the back innocently said.

"Yeah, good job! That was a tough one!" Micucci applauded.

"I'd hate to see what an easy one was." Winnie muttered under her breath.

"What'd ya say, Winkie?" Micucci questioned.

"Uh...I said, what a...delight to have such a smart man as our teacher!" Winnie stuttered.

"Well, I wasn't gonna be the one to say it, but you're not wrong." Micucci blushed.

* * *

After 75 grueling minutes of Micucci's ridiculously easy questions about relationship abuse, Sybella had almost tuned out. She was in the lead, but to put much mental attention into such inferior questions would be an insult to her own intellect. The only thing that caused her to tune back in was the realization there was just five minutes of class left.

"So, your lady's mad, sayin' all you care about is touchin' her body. What do you respond? Option A. "Good lord, it took you this long to figure that out?". Option B. "This is gettin' heated. We should talk it out." Option C. Draw your weapon. Option D. "Yeah, but havin' you around is a Double-D-light!" Micucci said.

"Let's see, use of weaponry, stupid answer, boob reference, and talk it out? I wonder which one?" Sybella sarcastically replied. "B."

"Nice! You got 16 right, so you won. So, you want me to give ya an extra point or upvote your Reddit post?" Micucci sheepishly inquired.

* * *

Though Sybella was ready for break already, she didn't even mind going to Human Studies after the joke that was commonly referred to as Health class. It felt like a huge relief to slump down into her cool, comfy chair and actually enjoy what she was learning.

"Okay class, we're going to continue talking about worldview today." Mrs. Griffin announced. "Humans, for the most part, take on the scientific worldview. Everything can be explained by science, logic, and reason. Now, let me explain, their definition of logic is a tad different from what you might expect. Their logic is all based on what they believe to be their constructed reality, in other words, that they are the most powerful beings in the universe and no such higher living beings exist upon the Earth. They deny the existence of the supernatural, because they only believe in the natural. They only _want_ to believe in the natural. Humans have strived for all of time to be the most powerful beings in the universe, the ones in control. The existence of such a supernatural being like us could take this power away from them. That's what it's all about, power. We all want power, and humans want the power that they can't have. Because we have it. So, by denying our existence, they remain the most powerful beings in the universe. Now, that's a powerful worldview."

Sybella loved Human Studies class, but the newfound knowledge always made her leave feeling a bit sadder than when she came in. She thought knowing more about the world would make her a happier person, but oh, how wrong she was.

This caused her to think a little bit about that time the human and two dogs came in to be their new gym coach. They were terrified when they first met her and her classmates, practically running to get away. Sure, they eventually warmed up to her, only to run out again when new students came in. New _monster_ students.

Were they so afraid because they were afraid of her? She wasn't _bad_. She knew that humans had a tendency to assume the worst of all monsters, but just like there were good and bad humans, there were good and bad creatures of the night too.

Maybe they were afraid because they too were in denial. Her and her friends' existence probably didn't seem possible to Coach Shaggy, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy.

They didn't believe in her.

* * *

In the past month, Sybella had felt more angsty than she had in the past 14 years of her life combined.

She sighed, obligatorily going to dinner but not really feeling like being particularly social. Though Micucci's class had been painful in the annoying sense, the crushing sense of the new knowledge about the human world felt far more scarring than any gross health-related thing Micucci could muster up.

"Hey Bella!" Winnie waved.

"Hey Winnie." Sybella said, less than enthused.

"You okay Bella? I know sunny days get us all down, but this seems a little deeper."

"Everything's okay." Sybella sighed. "I'll get better soon. It's just, we talked about something sad in Human Studies."

Sybella usually wasn't one to flaunt her negative feelings in front of others, especially her friends (she didn't want to get them down too), but she felt maybe there was some power in sharing with her friends instead of just being a mopey space filler like she had been lately.

"What'd you talk about?" Phanty asked, as she came floating out of the wall.

"We talked about worldview, and how humans don't believe in us." Sybella replied.

"Yeah, and what else is new?" Elsa chimed in.

"It's just sad, I guess. I was thinking back to our old coaches, and maybe that's why they were afraid of us. The very existence of us frightened them." Sybella sighed.

"Hey, I'm supposed to be the edgy one here!" Phantasma playfully snapped. "So be happy!"

"It's just a lot to think about." Sybella said, already regretting saying so much. But it was good she did. They were her friends, and they were genuinely concerned about her.

"Well, don't think about it then! Just enjoy dinner, Sybella!" Tanis chirped.

Sybella always admired the little mummy's attempts to make everything cheery. She wished sometimes that she could be like that, even if it did mean blissful ignorance. Or did it?

"Are you all excited for your Fall Harvest Break?" Miss Grimwood said, as she came out holding a large loaf of meat.

"Ooh, spider loaf!" Winnie said. "My favorite!"

"I am!" Tanis excitedly replied.

"Me too!" Phantasma said.

"I've got a lot of exciting things planned for our stay in Barren Bog. On Friday evening after dinner, we shall make our trek to the cabin that we've rented in the bog. Then, Saturday we'll take a nature walk through the bog. On Sunday, the Calloway Cadets will also be doing their exercises in Barren Bog. I've talked with Colonel Calloway, and he agreed to allow us to participate in an obstacle course with his cadets. Then, after getting a good rest that night, we shall have some leisurely swimming before returning to Grimwood's on Monday evening. How does that sound?"

"Sounded good until you said 'Calloway Cadets'." Sybella sighed.

"I know you dislike them, Sybella, but it's good to be able to cope with difficult situations sometimes." Miss Grimwood assured.

"I suppose." she huffed.

She supposed alright. She supposed it was going to be a testosterone party where her sexualized femininity was the guest of honor.

* * *

 _Friday, September 30_

 _Today is the day! Today was the day we're going to Barren Bog! But, you have two classes to get through yet, Creative Writing and Art, before you could get to Barren Bog. Then, it would surely be 'a real howl,' as Winnie would say._

Sybella put down her pencil as she looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly time to go to class. She figured a simple outfit would do today, given she figured barely anyone would actually be putting time into their appearance. She pulled a black lace-up top out of her second dresser drawer, along with a pair of simple jeans. It wasn't the fanciest thing she owned, but it would work for today.

Humming the Hex Girls' latest hit, "Who Do Voodoo?" Sybella walked down the stairs and headed for the breakfast room to pick up a rotten crabapple. She was only distracted by the sound of a familiar voice chirping behind her.

"Hey Sybella! Going to get some breakfast?" Tanis asked her ghoulish friend.

"Yeah. How about you?"

"Me too. I'm going to get a blood orange." Tanis informed.

"Excited for art today?" Sybella asked her bandaged buddy.

"Yeah! I wonder what Mr. Welker will have us paint today!" Tanis exclaimed with wonder.

"What's up, B?" a redheaded vampire behind her asked. She quickly realized it was her friend Callie.

"B?" Sybella laughed. 'B' was certainly a new nickname, but who knows, maybe it was some outsider slang. She never felt like she got all of the slang that all the other monsters used, having been sheltered living at Grimwood's all these years.

"Yeah, B. B as in 'Bella. I was just trying to be cute." Callie smiled.

"Well, you certainly succeeded." Sybella hugged her friend, Callie's red braid momentarily brushing against her back.

"Ready for Creative Writing?" Callie asked. "We're sharing our stories today in class."

"You bat I am!" Sybella enthusiastically replied. She felt bad, because she hadn't been that excited with Tanis a minute ago, but something about the newness of the relationship with Callie made Sybella feel a bit more cheerful. She couldn't help it exactly, that's just how she felt. Hopefully Tanis would either see the best in it, or even better, not notice at all.

"See you later, Sybella." Tanis walked away, looking a bit sad.

"Wait a minute, Tanis, you don't have to leave. Callie and I have still got a little time before we have to go to Creative Writing class." Sybella assured.

"No, that's okay. You and Callie just have fun!" It was clear that Tanis was trying to sound cheerful, but was doing a poor job of it.

Was Tanis _jealous_ of what her and Callie had? Sure, Callie and her had gotten closer over the past month, but that was just a month. Tanis and her had been friends since she was little. She hoped Tanis realized that, but angsty teenage feelings could be a bitch sometimes. She knew that better than anyone lately, it seemed.

* * *

Class had just begun, and Miss Lillard still wasn't in the room. As a matter of fact, neither was Sarah. She figured Sarah decided to go on break early or something, but nonetheless, she'd still miss Sarah a little. Even if Sarah could be a bit over the top sometimes, the vampire princess still secretly appreciated her sassy wit and dry humor.

"Sorry I'm late, class, I got a tad held up speaking with Miss Grimwood in the hall. Now, I'm excited to hear your short story presentations! Who wants to go first?" Miss Lillard inquired of the class.

When no one raised their hand, Sybella shrugged and walked up to the front. She figured she might as well get it over with. After all, it's not like her story was going to get any better or any worse by waiting until the end to present.

Sybella cleared her throat as she opened her mouth.

"My story was written about a human who makes her way into the monster world." Sybella hated to think about how she sounded, because she always imagined it sounded awkward or annoying. Maybe that was just something everyone thought, though. "My main character leaves the human world after she decides it's boring and unimaginative. She ventures into the monster world hoping for something new, and finds that it's actually beautiful. In the end, she has to make the difficult decision of which world she wants to live in."

"Sounds intriguing! Would you mind reading us a passage?" Miss Lillard smiled.

"Not at all." Sybella affirmed, as she began reading from her story. "Brynn opened her eyes for the first time. It was truly a spiritual awakening on her part: the world of the supernatural awakened every possibility, every wish, every hope, and every dream she had ever had. It was not just idealism. It was reality."

The whole class clapped, with Miss Lillard clapping the hardest.

"Wow. Wow Sybella! That was amazing! I can't wait to read the whole story over break." Miss Lillard applauded, causing Sybella to blush a tiny bit.

"Who's next?"

"I'm next!" a male werewolf snapped, in fact, the same one who had previously flipped out in her art class. He was a hulking beast towering over 6 feet - Sybella guess it was somewhere between 6'1" and 6'3", and it appeared from his agitated, demanding state that he was on his time of the moon.

"Okay Jack, please share." Miss Lillard urged.

"It's called The Dumb Broad. Once upon a time, there was a dumb broad. Now, this broad was so dumb that she was stupid. I mean, just straight up idiotsville. She had an IQ of probably like 10, or something. I don't know the definite number, but she was just a real moron." Jack said.

"Okay…" Miss Lillard looked a bit uneasy. "Can you move on to reading a passage from your story?"

"This IS a passage from my story!" Jack snapped. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah, she was dumb. She was so dumb that she couldn't even lick a Dum-Dum pop! Did I mention yet that she was dumb? Well, if I didn't, she was pretty stupid, man."

"Uhh...thank you Jack, for that...interesting story." Miss Lillard stuttered.

"I can go next, Miss Lillard!" Callie chirped.

"Excellent!" Miss Lillard seemed relieved.

"Mine is called Shark Attack!" Callie sounded grandiose in her delivery. "It's about a time when I was 9. My brother and I were up at our family cabin, and a shark attacked us. I had to save my little brother from being eaten alive!"

Everyone gasped, not expecting a real-life action story such as that one.

"Here's a passage. Zach and I were having the time of our lives playing together on the beach, playing Sandman. While the running was all in fun, it would soon serve as training for what was about to happen next! All of a sudden, the biggest shark either of us had ever seen surfaced, and swallowed my brother whole!"

The whole class gasped once again.

"I'm going to skip to the end here. Baring my fangs, I ran at the shark and bit it in the jaw, causing it to open its mouth just long enough for my brother to run out of it. If hadn't been for that one brave girl, her little brother would have been shark bait!" Something about Callie's enthusiasm really made this an entertaining story, in addition to knowing she had actually gone through with this in real life. It gave Sybella, being the sheltered little vampire princess she was, a broader perspective on life, and she assumed everyone else in the class felt this awe-inspired too. Sadly, she was wrong.

"Exemplary job, Callie! It will be hard for you to pass that one up, George, but I'm sure you'll do great!" Miss Lillard praised.

Sybella turned back to glance at George, who had the biggest 'oh shit' moment on his face that Sybella had seen in a long time.

"What have you got for us, George?" Miss Lillard repeated, as George nervously left his seat. "I'm sure it will be even more exciting than Callie's 'Shark Attack'!"

"Well...uh…"

Clearly he hadn't prepared at all.

"My story's about an attack too! It's called...uh...Goose Attack! It's about...uh...a goose attacking some people!" George stumbled over his words.

"How absurd!" Miss Lillard replied, looking intrigued. "Please, read us a passage!"

"Okay, here it is. GOOSE ATTACK! Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk!" George flapped his fake wings, getting up in the front row's faces pretending to be a goose.

Miss Lillard looked less than impressed. "And what part of the story is that from?"

"Uh...the part where the geese attack, of course!" George sheepishly smiled.

As George continued to make a fool of himself, Sybella whispered to Callie as she came back to her seat. "Good job!"

"Thanks, B!" Callie whispered back.

B. It was actually a pretty cute nickname, and she knew she could easily get used to being called it. More than that, in fact, she enjoyed the nickname. It clearly came from a place of affection, and it made Sybella's eyes light up to be thought of that way by another student. Sure, she loved her four lifelong friends, but it was nice to have some new acknowledgement and love from a brand new person. Nothing wrong with that, right?

* * *

As Sybella walked into her art class, Tanis was already there. She knew she had made Tanis feel bad earlier this morning, even if she wouldn't admit to it. The vampiress knew she had to say something, as to not let negative feelings fester up inside of her.

"Hi Tanis!" Sybella waved.

"Hey." Tanis meekly said.

"How was your morning class?" Sybella enthusiastically asked.

"Pretty good." Tanis replied.

Sybella waited for a reciprocal question, but it never came. Usually Tanis would be all over finding out about her day. She knew something was up, but she didn't have the time to deal with it before class started.

"Good afternoon, class. I know this your final class before you go on break, but I would appreciate your full attention for the duration of class, thank you." Mr. Welker said.

As if on cue, the class could hear Alice Walker's "School's Out" blaring from a boombox held by a student from outside the window.

Mr. Welker angrily shut the window. "Now, if we could refrain from such tomfoolery, I would be appreciative. Now, today, we're going to learn about abstract art. What does this look like to you?"

Mr. Welker held up a picture of a woman floating on a body of water, which appeared to be made up of half of a bed and half of a regular lake.

"Looks like the woman's levitating to me." Sybella raised her hand.

"I think she's just floating there." another voice from the back said.

"Looks like she's doing the backstroke." Tanis replied. "Maybe even resting after swimming a Nile or so."

"Well, which one's the right answer?" Jack, the student from Sybella's Creative Writing class inquired.

"That's just it!" Mr. Welker answered. "There is no right answer. Abstract art is all in the eye of the beholder. It's perspective taking like this that can change the world. Because if you have your own unique beliefs, and don't just go with what the crowd thinks, that's when you will see true beauty in things. You must use your voice to craft your own narrative and meaning in this world."

A fascinating perspective. Sybella loved how relatable this was to her life, in fact, pretty much everything she was learning in her classes was helping her grow as a person, she felt. Maybe Mr. Welker was right, and she needed to have her own unique voice to make meaning and create change in this world.

Maybe...just maybe...that would be the thing to change humans' irrational fear of monsters.

* * *

While Sybella loved class, she also was excited for vacation as any hard-working student would be. Tanis had already walked out before her, figuring it was to avoid her. Fine, if Tanis wanted to pout, then the vampiress would let the pouting run its course, and talk to the mummy once she was rational again.

Sybella came out of class just in time for a ruckus to begin.

Miss Grimwood fast-walked through the hall with a young cat creature at her side, who looked a bit dizzy.

"Uh...Miss Grimwood, is everything okay?" Sybella asked in a concerned manner.

"Everything is fine, Sybella." Miss Grimwood confirmed. "I'm just about to call the authorities on this rapscallion who was lurking in our catnip patch."

"Me-ow!" the cat exclaimed in a very chill manner. "That's some OG 'Nip you got out there, Miss G!"

"The college kids always get into trouble over their breaks. You see, the Ghoul Board asked us to align our break with the other institutions, so mischief was bound to occur." Miss Grimwood explained. "Anyways, I'll be out in a minute."

As Miss Grimwood scurried to her office with the miscreant cat creature, Sybella saw Tanis up ahead.

"Tanis!" Sybella called up ahead.

"What do you want, Sybella?" Tanis coldly replied.

"Tanis, what is this about?" Sybella bristled.

"Nothing." Tanis quickly muttered.

Sybella let her fangs slip out in aggravation. She would of course never hurt her mummy friend, but she was incredibly frustrated by how poorly Tanis was treating her. All five of them had been friends for years, and they always told each other when something was bothering them.

"Tanis, I asked you, what is wrong? There's clearly something bothering you."

"Just be with your new friends. You clearly don't need us anymore." Tanis sighed.

"Tanis, is that what this about? You don't own me. I can make new friends if I want!" Sybella snapped.

"Well...so can I!" Tanis stuttered.

"It's not a competition." Sybella informed.

"Fine then, you just go out and be the bad girl and wear makeup all the time! See if I care!"

Sybella's face lightened a bit. "Since when is wearing makeup a bad thing?"

"Uh...makeup leads to um...kissing...and touching...and..."

It was clear Tanis was struggling to think of anything bad or sexual.

"You're adorable." Sybella smiled as she hugged Tanis.

"Thanks, but that doesn't change that you're spending more time with Callie and Sarah, and…" It was clearly challenging for Tanis to let out her anger, given how mild-mannered she usually was.

"I'm listening." Sybella supportively interjected.

"I don't make new friends as easily as you do. You seem to be able to talk to anyone, and sometimes...I get a little shy." Tanis blushed. "What if you make new friends and forget about the four of us?"

"Honey, is that what you're worried about?" Sybella asked.

Tanis nodded.

"Ahww!" Sybella blurted, as she gave Tanis another big hug. "You've been an influential part of my growing up, ever since we met back when we were 4. I could never forget you, and I could never not be friends with you."

"Are you sure?" Tanis still seemed uneasy.

"Of course. Cross my fangs and hope to live." Sybella crossed her fangs playfully. "If I ever unintentionally leave you out of something, or I'm not giving you enough warmth, just let me know and I'll be happy to give you some more."

"Thanks Bella, you're the best!" Tanis seemed gleeful once again.

Maybe monsters weren't all bad after all. Tanis's adorable innocence proved that. If Tanis ever hurt someone in her entire life, Sybella would be shocked. She wished humans could see someone like Tanis, so she could dare them to still make the argument that all monsters were evil.

* * *

The girls all sat down to their traditional dinner, before they went on their way to the Barren Bog. Although it was typical for only the girls and Ms. Grimwood to be at dinner each night, the school still felt a little empty without the rest of the students. It was odd, because they were so used to being the only five students up until a month ago, but Sybella had begun to get used to the busyness of the school.

"Alright girls, are we excited for the trip to Barren Bog?" Miss Grimwood asked, her chipper self once again.

"Yeah!" Phantasma blurted.

"It should be a real howl!" Winnie exclaimed.

"Yeah, but I can't help thinking about that dark time five years ago when Revolta captured us there, and forced us to do her bidding." Elsa sighed.

"I was thinking the same thing." Tanis affirmed.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forget that time." Sybella shuttered.

"It's so unfortunate that had to happen to you girls, and at such a young age." Miss Grimwood shook her head. "But Revolta is gone now, and all her evil was destroyed when her lair blew up. Try to remember the good times, like your wonderful coaches taking you on a jog through the bog!"

"Yeah! We beat that old bat so bad she's probably back in the Dark Ages!" Winnie growled. "Just try to focus on the good things, guys."

"I suppose." Sybella sighed. She still hated the thought of going back there. None of them had been back to the Barren Bog since the incident with Revolta, so it felt a bit odd to be going back there after all these years. She'd had nightmares about Revolta still out there, lurking in the darkness somewhere planning her revenge. But that's all they were, nightmares. Nightmares weren't real...she hoped.

* * *

"I think we're all ready, girls!" Miss Grimwood called. "Does everyone have all their belongings for the weekend?"

A chorus of "yes"es answered Miss Grimwood's question, as each girl loaded the red van with their suitcase full of clothes, toiletries, and other belongings that they knew they would be needing during their 4-day adventure in Barren Bog.

Sybella was the last to load her purple suitcase, placed beside a green one that was Elsa's and a pink one that was Tanis's.

"Alright, it looks as if we are all loaded up!" Miss Grimwood said, as she hopped into the driver's seat of the van. "Should be about 30 minutes to Barren Bog!"

Sybella hopped in the van next to Tanis and Winnie, as Miss Grimwood drove off.

* * *

"We're almost here, girls!" Miss Grimwood called into the back seat.

It didn't feel like 30 minutes had passed at all, though Sybella was beginning to doze off a bit.

"Oh goody!" Tanis exclaimed.

"I was thinking we would just relax tonight and unpack in the cabin, given it's so late already. Unfortunately, there are only three rooms in the cabin, one of them for me, so some of you will have to share." Miss Grimwood informed.

"That's no problem Miss G!" Elsa assured.

"So who wants to be with who?" Winnie asked.

"I'll room with you, Sybella!" Tanis suggested.

"Sure!" Sybella agreed. It was sweet how much Tanis latched onto her after their little fight.

"Then the three of us can room together!" Winnie suggested, pointing a claw at Elsa and Phantasma.

"Sounds good to me." Elsa smiled.

"We've arrived, girls! Now please let me know if you need any help with your luggage." Miss Grimwood offered. "Our cabin is over there."

The cabin looked eerily similar to the one where four of the five girls (excluding only Sybella) were captured by Revolta. It was a small log cabin complimented by two scraggly looking trees, one on each side of the cabin. It couldn't be though, as this cabin was on the outer edge of the bog, whereas they were significantly deeper into the bog when they encountered Revolta. Still, it gave the vampiress (and the other girls too, she assumed) chills to think back to those dark couple of days when they were in the grasp of one of the most powerful witches of the supernatural world.

Sybella and Tanis wheeled their suitcases into the cabin, and discovered it wasn't actually as bad as she was expecting. She was expecting some dingy, messy old cabin, but this one was small but quaint and peaceful.

"Pretty nice." Elsa looked around at the log structure of the cabin. All of the logs looked perfectly symmetrical to one another, which gave it a sense of prestige and like it was made with great care and elegance.

"Yeah, it's super rustic!" Phantasma giggled.

The girls walked down the hall, furnished in various animal heads, including 2 moose, one elk, and a single deer. There were two rooms, one at the very end of the hall and the other to the left side.

"Which room do you all want?" Sybella politely inquired.

"We can take the one to the left, if that works for you guys." Winnie responded.

"Sure." Tanis shrugged, after she caught a nod from Sybella out of the corner of her eye.

"I don't know about y'all, but I'm so tired I feel like I'm dead. Oh wait, I am dead!" Phantasma giggled heartily.

"Me too, actually. I could use some sleep." Sybella followed. It wouldn't be her normal comfortable coffin, but she supposed a normal bed could work well.

"Let's all get some rest before our big day tomorrow." Elsa added. "Goodnight all!"

"Nighty night." Phantasma yawned.

"Yeah, goodnight girls!" Tanis called as she walked into her room.

"Sleep well." Winnie replied.

"Bad dreams, sisters!" Sybella smirked, playfully baring her fangs. Okay, maybe she'd stolen that line from her certain favorite band, The Hex Girls, but who were her friends to know? As far as the vampire princess knew, none of them knew about the band so she could use that line and sound originally badass.

Sybella walked into her room, which was sparsely decorated. A single mirror hung on the wall, which was unhelpful to her as she couldn't see her reflection after all. Besides that, the walls were as barren as the bog they were in. Sybella happened to notice it was only a single bed, but she didn't mind. Tanis was hardly one to be obtrusive or obnoxious with Sybella's personal space, with how mild-mannered she was. She trusted Tanis infinitely, so personal space mattered little to her in this situation anyways.

"You want the left or the right?" Sybella asked.

"Huh?" Tanis seemed confused.

"The left or the right side of the bed?" Sybella clarified.

"Oh. The left is fine. Sorry, I was just, you know, thinking about what happened last time we were here. I'm a little scared, Sybella." Tanis admitted, as she got into bed.

"Ahww." Sybella blurted. It was very rare for her to "aww" anything, especially with such a girly accentuation of an extraneous breathy "h," but Tanis was just so darn cute sometimes. "It's okay, honey. I'll protect us if needed."

As Sybella got into bed as well, she put her arm around Tanis for comfort as she closed her eyes.

"Thanks, Bella." Tanis smiled, as she closed her eyes as well and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

* * *

 _Saturday, October 1_

 _It's October! Your favorite month of the year, with your favorite holiday of the year. And what better way to kick it off than spending it on a vacation!_

 _Okay, so it's not_ really _a vacation, but you'd like to think of it as that._

 _Today, adventures abound in the Barren Bog, where you don't exactly know what's going to happen. Your mind is plagued with worries about your last time here, when the Witch of the Web, Revolta, captured you and all your friends and forced you to perform essentially slave labor for her._

 _But she's gone. She's gone. She's GONE._

 _Just enjoy yourself._

She had to write it out three times to make her mind believe it. She knew in her heart Revolta was gone for good, but she couldn't help having the nagging doubt that there was still an evil force lurking here.

She knew that they were going to take a walk through the bog, so she decided to wear something more sporty as to be prepared for a potentially fast jog. Sybella pulled a pair of red shorts, black tank top and purple sports bra, as well as a purple headband, out of her suitcase and proceed to put it on.

Tanis was still asleep, so Sybella figured she would just eat the breakfast that Miss Grimwood packed with the other girls who were up, and let Tanis wake up naturally on her own.

Sybella walked out of the cabin quietly, as not to wake anyone who was still asleep. Upon opening the door, she saw Elsa, Winnie and Miss Grimwood eating breakfast at a picnic table outside.

"Good morning! Phantasma still sleeping?" Sybella greeted.

"Yeah. She was _dead_ tired after all." Winnie informed.

Sybella smirked at the callback to Phanty's bad pun. It was admittedly so bad that it was a bit amusing.

"Tanis is still sleeping too." Sybella added.

"Good morning Sybella!" Miss Grimwood cheerfully greeted. "I've made us some spider-and-cheese omelets for breakfast."

"Mmm, sounds scrumptious!" Sybella replied, though still a bit groggy.

"So, the only plan for today is to go on a casual nature walk and just explore the bog today." Miss Grimwood shared. "You may feel free to do whatever you want the rest of the day. This is a break after all, it's supposed to be relaxing for you girls."

"Thanks, Miss G." Elsa showed her appreciation to the headmistress.

"Morning all." Tanis walked out of the cabin and did a big and very princess-like stretch.

"Good morning Tanis!" said Miss Grimwood. "We have spider-and-cheese omelettes for our breakfast this morning. We're just waiting for Phantasma to get up and eat breakfast before we leave on our nature walk."

"Thanks for cooking, Miss Grimwood. Sounds delicious!" Tanis answered.

The girls all ate their breakfast, still waking up a bit.

"'Sup, Grimwood ghouls!" Phantasma came out of the cabin, rubbing her eyes.

"Good morning Phantasma!" Miss Grimwood greeted. "We have spider-and cheese omelettes for breakfast. Whenever you're done, we can go on our little nature walk. But take your time!"

"Mmm, thank you Miss Grimwood! That was sweet of you to make breakfast." Phantasma thanked.

"You're very welcome. Now, how did everyone sleep last night?" Miss Grimwood questioned.

"I slept so hard, it was like I've been dead for 14 years...oh wait…" Phantasma smirked, to which everyone else groaned.

"I slept well." Tanis meekly replied.

"Yeah, it felt like I fell asleep instantly." Sybella jumped in.

"Oh, I'm so glad to hear that." Miss Grimwood replied, as Phantasma shoveled down her breakfast.

In a matter of a few minutes, the apparition was all ready to go.

"I think I'm about ready, everyone! Let's get going!" Phantasma instructed.

"Well, you heard her!" Miss Grimwood led the way into the Barren Bog. Phantasma, Sybella, Winnie and Tanis all picked up their water bottles along for the long walk ahead. There was no denying it now; it was happening. After five long years they were going back into to Barren Bog...Sybella only hoped they could get out.

* * *

The girls trekked through Barren Bog, enjoying the various nature around them: crows hopping from dead trees, vultures circling over head, scraggly dead bushes with interesting shapes, you know, just the same stuff that everyone admires in nature.

"Wow, I think this is the place where you rescued our coaches, Bella!" Winnie pointed out.

Sure enough, it was. The same mucky body of water surrounded by a bunch of scraggly trees was there as if time had stood still. Nothing looked any different than it had five years ago. While the other girls and Miss Grimwood walked ahead, Sybella stayed behind just a moment to take it all in and reminisce.

All of a sudden, the water started bubbling, and a large vine began creeping out slowly. What in the world was this? As the vine became more and more visible, a gigantic, circular tannish-brown thing began to emerge, but just as quickly began to submerge back into the depths of the bog, along with the long creepy vine.

She couldn't have seen what she thought she just saw. Could it have been...the Grim Creeper?

* * *

 _Sunday, October 2_

 _The day came and went, and we enjoyed our nature bog walk quite a lot. You didn't bother to tell any of the others about what you saw. You figure either what you saw was probably mistaken, or it was a figment of your imagination. Besides, you don't want to worry any of them, especially Tanis, who already seemed pretty on edge about the whole thing._

 _Today, the plan was to take on the Calloway Cadets in an obstacle course throughout the bog. Hopefully it won't be too challenging, given the Cadets' advanced level of exercise skills. With Micucci as our coach, we barely stand a chance against them._

Sybella set her pen and journal down on the bed, as she walked over to her suitcase and began digging through it. Figuring they were on an obstacle course today, she decided to don another pair of shorts and a tank top.

She admitted she wasn't really aware of her surroundings in her groggy state, she hadn't even noticed that Tanis had already gotten up. This was new. Was she the last one up?

As she left the cabin, she quickly realized her suspicions were correct. The Calloway Cadets were already ready to go, with Phantasma being the last one eating her breakfast once again.

"Good morning, Sybella!" Miss Grimwood greeted.

"Yeah, good morning. That's what I'm gonna say to her tomorrow when we wake up in the same bed!" one of the cadets muttered.

"Excuse me?" Sybella snapped. Miss Grimwood didn't seem to comment on the matter. The vampire wasn't sure if she didn't hear it or if she was just choosing to ignore the lewd remark.

"Sorry I slept so late. I must have been more tired than I thought." Sybella yawned.

"No worries, Sybella. Now, the Colonel was nice enough to make us all a waffle breakfast. Feel free to dig in, there are two left!"

"One will be just fine, thanks Miss Grimwood." Sybella picked up a waffle, though she noticed there was no blood syrup to go with it. She figured the colonel wouldn't think about the monsters enough to bring any, and she was fine with it. There was another thing she noticed though. The waffles weren't in their typical circular shape, rather they were just four-sided pancakes with holes.

"Hey, these aren't waffles. These are square pancakes." Sybella noticed.

"Uh, sorry about that." the colonel apologized. "The waffle iron's in the shop."

Sybella quickly ate her waffle and thanked the colonel, as everyone gathered in a group for the beginning of the obstacle course.

"Alright, is everyone ready?" Colonel Calloway asked.

"Alright, are we ready to start?" Miss Grimwood asked.

"Yeah." Sybella growled. "I'm ready to start tearing these Calloway Cadets apart."

"It'll be fine, Sybella." Winnie assured. "Now let's show 'em who's boss."

"Alright, everyone, it's Grimwood Girls vs. Calloway Cadets! The first part of the obstacle course will consist in a 50 yard foot race, to be followed by crawling through a long, dark tunnel. Third, you will be swimming through a large pond, which is surrounded by a pool of quicksand. You'll have to find the right place to walk to avoid sinking! Afterwards, you will climb to the top of a nearby hill to find your team's flag, to be immediately followed by a final foot race back to the starting point, the Grimwood Girls' cabins. Everyone ready?" Colonel Calloway explained.

After a short silence, the colonel cried out "On your marks! Get set! Go!"

Each team began running as fast as they could. The Calloway Cadets were of course in the lead, with all the training they had gotten over the years. Sybella was just lucky that Coach Micucci wasn't around to train them poorly.

"They're beating us!" the ever-competitive Winnie exclaimed. If there was any one of the girls that was sporty, it was definitely the young werewolf.

"Don't worry about it." Sybella said. "We can see way better in the dark than them in that tunnel, plus they have find their flag. We should be able to beat them there."

"But they're better than us at swimming!" Elsa pointed out.

"True, but we have other abilities. You know, flight?" Phantasma looked at Sybella.

"Is that cheating?" Sybella inquired.

"Not the way I see it." Winnie shrugged. "They have extra abilities because of military training, and we have extra abilities because of monster training. Same thing, right?"

"I suppose that's true." Sybella perked up her ears, liking the point Winnie was making. "They've already passed this and are onto the tunnel part of the course."

"Then we'll just have to try our best and pass them." Winnie promised.

* * *

The girls crawled through the long, dark tunnel, but to no avail. The Calloway Cadets had already surpassed the tunnel, and they had gotten to the swimming portion of the obstacle course...or at least Sybella hoped they were, and not already past that and looking for their team's flag.

"Watch out!" Tanis exclaimed to Sybella, urgently but politely.

"What'd I do?" Sybella perked up, confused about Tanis's agitation.

"You're tappin' on my wrappin'." Tanis laughed.

"I think we're nearly through the tunnel now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel." Sybella pointed up ahead.

"Does that mean we're all dying? Oh wait…" Phantasma smirked. Everyone groaned in response. "Sorry, I can't pass up a good pun like that!"

The girls had finally arrived at the end of the tunnel, which had a view of the large pond up ahead that they would need to swim through. Unfortunately, they saw the Calloway Cadets towards the middle already.

"Oh no, those Cadets have already started! They're halfway through!" Tanis lamented.

"But they're not all the way through, meaning that tunnel must have slowed them down, at least a little. They'll be ahead of us for the swimming part, but in the next part, we have the upper hand. We can use that to our advantage." Sybella tried to cheer her team up. She honestly had no idea how good the Calloway Cadets were at searching for items (well, she knew they seemed to be pretty driven when it came to undergarments from her experience this morning, go figure). But they couldn't fly, and that was a leg (or rather a wing) up as far as she was concerned!

"I don't wanna get wet…" Tanis whined. Ironically, with her waterproof wrapping job, she was the most prepared of them all to get wet. The rest of them would have to jump in with their clothes still on.

Sybella was the first to take a jump into the pond.

"Oh!" She shivered. "It's so cold!

The rest of the girls quickly followed her in, except for Tanis.

"C'mon, Tanis!" Sybella urged.

"Well you didn't exactly give a ringing endorsement." Tanis replied nervously.

"You don't want those Calloway Cadets to win, do you?" Winnie baited.

"Just imagine Micucci's here teaching you about ding-a-lings and kickin' skanks in the jewels!" Phantasma joked. "You have to swim to get away from him."

That got Tanis moving. She quickly jumped in the water and began swimming equally as fast, if not faster than the other girls. Sybella didn't blame her, really. Micucci teaching her about the body wasn't a pleasant thing for anyone to imagine, much less live through.

"This isn't actually all that bad." Tanis admitted.

"Oh no? Look at those Calloway Cadets. They just made it to the end of the pond!" Winnie pointed to the group of cadets beginning to run up the hill.

"Don't worry. We'll still make it. I know we will." Sybella hoped.

The girls proceeded to swim to the edge of the large pond, even having a bit of fun with it as they splashed each other playfully and did fancy swimming strokes to show off the skills they had gained over the years from their gym classes.

"That was actually pretty fun!" Sybella said, making it to the end of the pond first.

"Yeah!" Winnie replied, as she shook the water off herself at the edge.

"No time to stop now guys. We gotta beat those cadets!" Elsa reminded.

Tanis and Phantasma were quick to follow the rest of the girls, who were booking it up the hill to get to their team flag in time.

Sybella could begin to hear the Cadets talking to each other just as she was cresting the hill.

"Where is it?" Miguel asked. "I don't see the flag anywhere around here."

Being naturally aware of high places given her bat abilities, Sybella instantly saw their red flag: hidden up in on a branch hanging over the hill. The Cadets' blue flag was up there as well.

Sybella spared no time turning into a bat and flying up to the tree branch, grabbing the flag in her claws.

"Hey, look! That batty girl has it!" Baxter pointed.

"Fucking ugly bitch." Tug muttered under his breath.

"Excuse me?" Sybella's voice became clearer as she turned back into a vampire. "What'd you just say?"

"Nothing." Tug snickered.

"No, what the fuck did you just say?" Sybella snapped.

"Sybella, help!" a voice from below called. Sybella suddenly realized why none of the others were up there with her: they must be stuck in the quicksand that Colonel Calloway was talking about.

Sybella momentarily distracted herself from ripping the Tug's heart out and sucking his blood (okay, she wouldn't _actually_ do that, but boy, did she want to!) to go rescue her trapped friends down the hill.

"They got trapped in the quicksand!" Elsa said, pointing to Phantasma and Tanis.

"Help Sybella!" Tanis desperately cried.

"Just hold on to my wings, and I'll try to fly you out one at a time!" Sybella rapidly turned into a bat. The bat hovered over Phanty first, getting plenty close so it was easy for her to grab on. With all her might, Sybella flew away from the quicksand puddle and Phantasma went flying out of Sybella's grasp and safely onto the grass.

Next, she went for Tanis. Hovering nearly on top of Tanis's bandaged hands, Sybella was able get Tanis to grab onto her purple wings.

"Hurry Sybella! They've almost got their flag!" Tanis pointed to the Cadets, who had apparently made a human ladder to grab their flag off the tree branch. This only gave Sybella more vigor, which allowed her to pretty effortlessly pull her mummy friend out of the quicksand.

"Thanks Sybella." Tanis smiled. "Now we've just gotta kick some Cadet butt!"

* * *

The girls high-tailed it back to the finish line, with the Calloway Cadets right behind them. There was no time to stop for a breath; no, they had to sprint to the finish line if they were to make it back first and win.

Sybella was in the very front, while the other girls trailed a tiny bit behind, yet still ahead of the Calloway Cadets.

"Watch out!" Winnie screamed from behind.

Instinctively, Sybella turned into a bat, and quickly realized the reason for the ruckus: there was a large branch coming right at her face from behind.

"It's those Calloway Cadets again." Elsa grumbled.

"Hahaha!" Tug heartily laughed from behind. "Sorry, didn't mean to _stick_ it to you!"

"We're almost at the finish line now." Sybella looked up ahead, hoping it was the end of the Cadets' tricks.

Usually, Winnie was the competitive one, but after all that happened today, Sybella was feeling more determined than ever to truly _stick_ it to these misogynistic, narcissistic Calloway Cadets. She wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but she felt this made her run a bit faster. And at last, she saw the finish line up ahead, with Colonel Calloway and Miss Grimwood standing there waiting.

"Just a few more steps, Bella!" Winnie howled in delight.

Sybella triumphantly passed the finish line with their team's flag, just seconds before the Cadets did.

"Grimwood wins!" Colonel Calloway announced.

"Wait, no they don't! No fair!" Tug shouted. "They cheated!"

"How did they cheat, Cadet Roper?" the colonel inquired.

"Sybella turned into a bat! Right in front of our eyes!" Jamal revealed.

"Is this true, Sybella?" the colonel looked disapprovingly.

"Yes, but it's not cheating! They have abilities they've been trained for way beyond what we have been. So, this is just another ability that I have." Sybella rationalized.

"She makes a fair point, colonel." Miss Grimwood sympathized. "Besides, we've never penalized them for it in our volleyball tournaments."

"Uh...I suppose." the colonel reluctantly agreed. "Grimwood wins."

The girls cheered and high five each other, shrieking and laughing together in happiness. The Calloway Cadets groaned nearby.

"You won this round, but we're gonna annihilate you in a few weeks at the annual volleyball match." Tug taunted.

"We'll see about that." Sybella glared back at the Cadets. But the victory felt too bittersweet for her to dwell on the negativity.

"Congratulations girls!" Miss Grimwood cheered with the ghouls.

It felt good to one-up the cadets for once. The Cadets generally won their volleyball match, but maybe, just maybe, with Callie and Sarah on the team this year, they would beat the Calloway Cadets in another sweet, sweet well-deserved victory.

* * *

 _Monday, October 3_

 _Despite the little scare on the first day with the supposed return of an old foe, this was really an amazing break. You still have tomorrow to just relax and finish up any homework, and today should be relatively leisurely as well. The only plan was to go swimming in the lake that you swam in yesterday during the obstacle course._

 _And the Calloway Cadets even got what they deserved in the end, the stupid neanderthals._

 _This was a wonderful break, and it's left you feeling invigorated and ready to go back to school on Wednesday._

 _Additionally, you've convinced yourself that what you saw wasn't actually the Grim Creeper. It must have been a trick of the eyes or simply a misperception of your part. Revolta died five years ago, and there's no way her or any of her lackies would come back now._

* * *

 **Meanwhile in the Barren Bog…**

* * *

"Master! I have news!" a creeping, crawling vine exclaimed as it emerged from the bog.

"Well, spill it Grim Creeper!" Revolta snapped.

"The Grimwood Girls! They were here!" the vine slowly emerged from the depths of the muck, its full rotting pumpkin-shaped body now mostly showing.

"The Grimwood Girls were here in MY bog?" Revolta hissed. "Soon they will regret ever coming into my domain."

"But Revolta…" the Grim Creeper reminded. "You are too weak to attack the girls yet! You need to regain your strength first!"

"Alas, what you say is inevitably true, Grim Creeper!" Revolta admitted. "I must find a way to get my strength back. But I'm concocting a potion to regain my full strength, and more!"

"But Revolta…" the Grim Creeper stuttered.

"But what?" Revolta snapped.

"But you don't have the spell book! The spell book tells you the amount of each of the items that you need! And that's in…"

"Yes, in the Grimwood Finishing School. I'm aware, Creeper! Given neither you or I are not powerful enough to carry out the task ourselves...I'll just have to request a favor from an old friend!"

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Firstly, I want to apologize for it being almost a year since my last update! I am happy to report that I've finished my other fanfic _Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake_ , as of this past August. I was pretty focused on my goal of finishing the fanfic before Return to Zombie Island came out in September to avoid any plot holes (though I ultimately had nothing to worry about with how inconsistent the film ended up being with the original film). Given this, I'm happy to say that I'm now able to fully focus writing on this fanfic and I won't have to split whatever time I have to write between two different fanfics.

I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! I thought it would be sweet to work in some cute bonding moments between the girls, so hopefully I did that justice.

I wanted to explain the bit about Sybella only being able to lift out one person at a time from the quicksand. In the Ghoul School movie, Sybella says that she can only lift one at a time as the lair is blowing up. However, we see her lift Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy all at one time earlier in the movie when she's helping them escape from the alligators in the bog. My in-universe explanation for this, for the sake of this fanfic, is that Sybella could only handle the extra load (i.e. the dogs) because they were both light enough for her to lift, but she can't lift more than one person as they weigh much more than the two dogs would.

Lastly, a bit of a personal note, this is the longest chapter so far of the fanfic, totaling out at about 10,100 words. This also just barely beats my previous words-per-chapter record of 10,000 words that the final chapter of Coast to Coast was, so go me I guess haha!

Once again, I included quite a few references in this chapter, though there's quite a healthy mix this time. This chapter included two references to Scooby (one specifically from Ghoul School), a _Simpsons_ reference, one from a popular Netflix film, and even one that has a more personal meaning for me. Let's delve in and dissect these references a little more a little segment of the author's note I like to call **reference time** , in case you missed some or all of the pop culture ones.

\- Sybella walks down the stairs humming "Who Do Voodoo?" which is a song that the Hex Girls sang in _Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Vampire_.

\- Sort of a random reference that doesn't mean too much, but Jack being between 6'1'' and 6'3'' was inspired by a film I recently watched called _Tall Girl_ (great film, you all should see it!), in which the main character is said at one point in the film to be 6'1'', and at another point, she's said to be 6'3''. Just an odd thing from the film that stood out to me (probably a mistake on the writers' part, or something that accidentally wasn't changed in the final draft of the script), so I decided to include it here.

\- In Callie's story, the game Sandmonster is an actual game that kids at my elementary school played when I was a child. The point of the game was trying to run on the playground to the highest piece of equipment, to avoid the one designated player who was the "Sandmonster." The Sandmonster had to keep both feet on the sand, but it could reach up and attempt to grab anything within its reach. I thought it would be a fitting game for the monsters to play, and a fun personal reference I wanted to throw in.

\- Sybella's comment and the colonel's response regarding the square "waffles" is identical to Lisa and Marge's dialogue in _The Simpsons_ episode "Treehouse of Horror VII," in the segment _The Genesis Tub_.

\- Tanis's line about "tappin' on her wrappin'" was a line she also said in the original Ghoul School film.

Favorites? Follows? Yep, I dig 'em. Reviews? I love knowing what I could do better, so feel free to leave me one if you enjoyed this fanfic, or felt it could have improved in some way.

Until next time my friends, and I hope that you all are having a wonderful start to the new decade!


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